Hancock

Hancock is a very strange movie. The first half of the movie is about an alcoholic homeless super-hero trying to rehabilitate his image. The second half is about something else altogether.

In order to discus the movie properly, I will have to issue a SPOILER WARNING! Read no further if you have not seen the movie.

The BIG TWIST in HANCOCK comes when it is revealed that CHARLIZE THERON also has super-powers, and that she is HANCOCK's wife. This is where the movie kind of falls apart. The Charlize Theron thing is brought in from out of nowhere. (Hancock & Theron meet by chance in the movie. He was not looking for her and he does not remember her.)

The movie tries to set up a tragic situation where Hancock and his wife cancel out each other's powers if they are together too long. Their solution is that he moves to New York and she stays in L.A. We're supposed to feel sad that this couple can never be together, but the movie never really establishes any kind of relationship between them. She stares at him with hate in her eyes. He stares at her with a mixture of lust and confusion. That's about it.

This movie really needed a good villain for Hancock to fight. Charlize Theron is not it. They really should have stuck to the original concept for the film. The twist half-way through the film was a mistake. It takes the film off-course and it never really recovers.

And there should be a limit to the number of times you can use the word "asshole" in one film. I think they say it about 100 times in Hancock. Typing the word "asshole" 100 times really doesn't count as writing a script.

All in all I would have to call HANCOCK a disappointment. In the hierarchy of super-hero movies, it is not as good as this summer's IRON MAN or even HULK. For that matter, it is not as good as MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND, the film which it most resembles in tone.