Okay in parts, but you get the idea Will Smith should be more careful of the scripts he's offered

Rating: 4/10 (26 January 2009)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
John Hancock (Will Smith) is not your traditional superhero. He seems to have more trouble sorting out the sh!t in his own head than the sh!t on the streets, and is something of an alcoholic. When he causes yet another catastrophe, he is approached by PR guru Ray Emery (Jason Bateman) who invites him into the house he shares with his wife Mary (Charlize Theron) and their young son. Ray wants to get Hancock to change his image and manners and try to improve the public perception of him, even convincing him to turn himself in and serve a little time in jail. But it all changes when he learns that Mary has the same superpowers as him and a new villain, Red (Eddie Marsan) is on the loose...
Obviously intended as a humorous slant on all the superhero movies we were seeing last summer, Hancock further got Will Smith in people's faces after a string of movies as of late. But unfortunately, the lasting impression is that he should be more choosy about the script's he chooses...
There's just nothing to Hancock. No depth, no substance, no...anything, really. It's just one of those scripts that you wonder why someone didn't look at it and think...this just doesn't work as a movie. The clever special effects, including a sequence where the two superheros battle with tornadoes tearing the streets of New York to pieces, certainly don't cover up the cracks in the weak script and a plot that just fails to have any sort of narrative flow at all. The Kingdom director Peter Berg's shaky camera doesn't help much either, and Hancock as a character is understandably flawed and depressed. Superheros are meant to be concealed characters, and certainly have more impressive powers than to just blast off up into the air and toss huge things up into the air. Rising star Marsan's villain hardly gets enough screen time to make much of an impression.
It may not have been a massive flop, but it's certainly left a lasting impression about Smith for all the wrong reasons. **