Changes...a bit....

Rating: 1/10 (18 January 2010)

Last summer a superhero film stormed the box offices both sides of the Atlantic. It was called Hancock, a film about an alcoholic superhero played by Will Smith. A bundle of laughs? NO
The film follows the path of a rude, disgusting, irritating superhero called John Hancock (Will Smith). The public hate him; he causes millions of "dollars" worth of damage, is a drunk and makes constantly obscene comments about people. But one day he happens to save the life of a PR Guru (Jason Bateman) and is offered a chance to save his image. This starts of his avid career as a superhero. Until a chance encounter causes the film to dive bomb into the realms of beyond crap.
It slots perfectly into the genre of comedy, action, superhero, adventure, romance, sci-fi, fantasy and crime. Though this great mixture of genres usually benefits films, with Hancock it just doesn't work. The film jumps between the various genres so quickly that you never have the actual time to register what's happening and whether the scene is meant to be sarcastic or sentimental. The style changes drastically too; between sad violin music and the latest chart hip-hop; between big set action pieces and amusing family dinners. This attempt at appealing to everybody fails miserably.
Personally I would recommend this film to people who have nothing better to do with their time then watch Will Smith throw cars around and make obscenely offensive comments about people. This is not a family film due to the crude remarks, excessive language and unnecessary violence; basically if you showed it to your grandma she would have a heart attack and spend the rest of her life in hospital only able to move the big toe of her left foot.
The acting in it is frankly amateur (or should I say appalling). None of the actors seam to like what they are doing- they don't even seam to be trying- they're just acting normally. The producers have obviously tried very hard to get people to hate Will Smith and it works- he is possibly the most unlikeable character in the whole film. British actor Eddie Marsan plays the "bad guy" Red, he is acceptable apart the slightly dodgy attempt at an American accent. Not Good. If I was being nice I would say that Will Smith shows quite a good performance as the disgusting superhero, then I look through his previous films and realise that all his characters are basically the same. Only for really die-hard fans.
The special effects are disappointing especially when he attempts to land on a pavement in front of some guys house. You feel as if you are watching a 1963 Batman film before they had discovered the wonders of CGI. In fact the CGI is so disappointing it's actually hilarious especially at the end, when you just really want somebody to die, but they just carry on throwing tea urns and hospital beds around while a giant CGI'd thunderstorm rages outside the window- not a good look.
In comparison to other films in the genre of Superhero/Comedy it looks terrible. Take Hellboy for instance; the tongue in cheek humour of Guillermo Del Toro combined with the great fantasy creatures in the style of Pans Labyrinth and sarcastic superhero, the film does a really great job. However next to Hellboy the film Hancock just looks more annoyingly, terribly, irritatingly amateur. If you're looking for a decent superhero film with laughs see Hellboy, if you're looking for a dark, chilling superhero film see The Dark Knight and if you're looking for a boring, arrogant, overdone superhero film see Hancock.
Overall this film is possibly the worst superhero film of the summer. Only see it if you have to.