Wednesday

Most superheroes, I once read, in some way represent America. This cannot be more true than for Hancock. He has great powers but is irresponsible with them, doesn't really care how he uses them, or who accidentally gets hurt along the way. Yes, he will catch the bad guys, but he'll do an enormous amount of destruction in order to do so. No one really likes him. During one such catastrophic rescue he (Will Smith) meets a PR man (Jason Bateman), who pledges to make people like him again. With a little bit of effort, Hancock improves and people start to love him -I know this was filmed before Obama got elected, but isn't it a bit of a coincidence? Anyway, I found this all pretty enjoyable up to this point. However, the film then goes off on another tangent which I don't want to ruin for you. This new tangent is never fully explained, and its origins a dismissed with bad script writing. We never really get to find out who Hancock is and where he comes from, which directly contradicts the nature of the movie. If you're going to make a film about a very realistic superhero, you have to realistically justify who he is, which they don't. It was also quite annoying that the special effects of him flying looked bad by today's normally high standards. So, this was interesting, but also frustrating.