It's taken me most of a week to bring myself to write about Hancock, which should probably give an indication as to its quality. But, truthfully, it's substantially less shitty than I imagined it'd be.
When I first heard the description for Hancock (then called Tonight He Comes), it sounded like a dark noir superhero movie. This is far from that. It's a mix of comedy and drama in a film that is, ostensibly, about a superhero, but not really.
In the end, most of the superhero-like aspects of Hancock are an irrelevancy and it's nothing more than an action-drama featuring some supernatural elements.
Will Smith, who I grow to like less and less as time goes by, with his blandly handsome looks and carefully-crafted charismatic charm seems to be a maufactured star and that is shown off to great effect here. He is in good company with a cast of strong actors and an enjoyable director in Peter Berg, but the movie can't help but feel hollow. One is left throughout the film waiting for something greater to happen, but, in the end, is left somewhat unsatisfied. It's as if M. Night Shyamalan wrote a superhero movie.... Oh, yeah, I guess he already did. But this movie does carry that certain dull buildup toward nothing, minus the pretension.
There are certain aspects that make the film watchable and, at a swift 90 minutes, the film goes quickly enough; there is humor throughout and the sharp wit of Jason Bateman to help raise the film from complete boredom, as well as a good visual style. But, sadly, it mainly treads water and leaves you waiting for The Dark Knight or another film to come out.
