The big twist completely ruins it

Rating: 5/10 (6 July 2008)

This was a major disappointment. It's not that it looked like it was going to be fantastic and wasn't. No, the problem is that it was fantastic for about forty minutes, and then it became derailed so completely that it absolutely ruined all of my enjoyment. Will Smith, the king of the Forth of July, stars as a superhero. The gimmick: he's a screw-up and a drunk, and his heroic actions generally cause far more collateral damage than the actual problem he's trying to solve. The public hates him. One day he meets a down-on-his-luck PR expert (Jason Bateman) who has some ideas on how he can improve his image. It's a great premise, but the first thought you might have is, can they stretch it out to at least 90 minutes without breaking it? I honestly think the answer is yes, they could have. Their answer is, no, let's throw in an insanely idiotic twist that changes the film from a hilarious action-comedy to a dark, romantic superhero picture. I knew as soon as I saw Charlize Theron in the film that they were saving her character for some big twist, as the advertisements for the movie didn't include a single shot of her. You don't hire an actress that big and not give her something important to do. They had something so great here. The first half of it had me laughing out loud frequently. I've been waiting for Hollywood to skewer superhero movies intelligently ever since Batman Begins, where Batman's chase with the police causes millions of dollars of damage. I know it was pretty much universally hated, but My Super Ex-Girlfriend covered similar territory and, while it was never great, it didn't screw up anywhere near as royally as Hancock did.