A superhero movie for people who hate superhero movies

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2019)

Browsing the most popular reviews for this flick, I see most of them criticize "Hancock" for not having enough action, not enough cgi, not having a super villain, or my favorite: getting too philosophical. See, this is why Hollywood keeps cranking out brainless superhero flicks; they know that the target audience doesn't want to be challenged with something completely different.
I suppose "2001: A Space Odyssey" would've gotten the same treatment by imdb reviewers if imdb existed back in 1968 when the core scifi market demanded laser beams, monster suits, buxom babes in distress and loud things in space.
"Hancock" does to the superhero genre what "2001" did to scifi. It made things real. Sure, Hancock zips through the sky like Superman on crack, but the point is that Hancock (played by Will Smith) is an ordinary schmuck like you or me, except that he happens to have super powers. Even worse, he has the world's worst case of idgaf, and this leads to a lot of stuff getting broken, bent and blown up unnecessarily. As a result, people hate him.
Right there is the all the plot you need. You don't need a contrived super villain just because that's the formula. You don't need nonstop action and dazzling cgi to tell this story. This is because Hancock's enemy is himself.
"Hancock" could easily have been a heavy, brooding drama like "Leaving Las Vegas" or anything dealing with self-hatred, addiction or depression. BUT, this is the movie's charm, instead it's done very light-heartedly, with lots of zingers, funny sight gags and a quirky dysfunctional romance angle. And of course superhero powers. And so, this heavy story ends up being fun and entertaining, even breezy. But the more you think about it, there's a lot under the surface.
So, as my title says, if you're not a fan of most superhero flicks, the kind with a clean good vs. evil template peppered with zippy action scenes and cgi, then give "Hancock" a look. There aren't a lot of movies like this, definitely not many mainstream ones, but I'd put it in the same category as "Special" with Michael Rappaport playing a total loser who develops bizarre super powers. On the more disturbing side there's "Super" with Rainn Wilson who takes his vigilante superhero efforts a bit too far. These are all deep films under the candy exterior of "superhero flick".