Great potential wasted.....

Rating: Null/10 (2 July 2008)

OK I'm just back from seeing the latest Will Smith summer event movie "Hancock". Expectation was quite high having seen the trailers.
The premise behind the film certainly had enough promise and potential. It had a "something new" and fresh appeal to it. We also had arguable the biggest box office star going attached to the films title character, so it surely going to be an awesome spectacle and the hit of the summer.
Well I can't quite comment wither or not the film will be the box office smash of the year, but I certainly can state in my opinion that it AIN'T the "awesome spectacle" I initially thought it could be. So what went wrong?
The film has no soul, from the very start to the ending credits the film feels empty. No emotion attached to the project, no feeling of awe. Can't quite put my finger on the spot but something major was lacking in the movie experience for the viewer regarding the overall feel of the flick.
No character arc's worth mentioning, I know we are supposed to not be that keen on the Hancock character, but there must be something in the character that we will grow to love. There ain't, Hancock has an effect flat-line arc. This is exactly the same with the other major players in the movie. Nobody gets developed fully or even slightly throughout the rather short 90 minutes or so running time.
The score was also terrible, from start to end.
The Superhero back story again was extremely weak.
Villains were so weak, we didn't really need anybody with super-powers to deal with them.
The first half or so of the movie was at least enjoyable popcorn fun, but the latter half was particularly weak. When the film became "serious" when the drama kicked off the film just became severely lost. It lost structure, it didn't know what genre it wanted to be, action, drama, continued comedy or suspense. Unfortunately for the viewer it was none of them so just became pointless and irritating. They really should have padded out the idea of the first 45 minutes with some more evolved ideas from the part of the story and we might well have had a good movie. Unfortunately they didn't and they padded the film out with a tangent story-line that made no coherence or sense.
There are positives, Will Smith for what he had to play with was as usual entertaining to watch. The Jason Bateman character was likable and also enjoyable to watch, well up until the third act when he frittered away to a cardboard cutout. Special effects were more than adequate, and at times quite spectacular. There was also a few laugh out loud moments, particularly the Youtube scenes.
Overall this film had so much potential, this movie could have and should have been great, but unfortunately it was very poorly handled and executed. The blame must fall down to the direction, and script.
Half marks, 5/10 Worth going to see.......just.