this summer will have seen 5 major super hero movies, by the time we put away our bbq grills. of those that have shown up so far, hancock is by far the best.before the fanboys and marvel true believers flame us, iron man had a passable script, a predictable plot, and a brilliant performance by robert downey. the incredible hulk had a better script, a solid performance by ed norton, and some genuine (if fleeting) pathos. (the monster fight at the end was draggy, silly, and unrealistic, but let's not quibble.)
hancock has pathos, realism, and - if you're looking for it - more than a little symbolism. in fact, depending upon your bent, you can read it to be about the perils of public falls from grace, a parable about the might & the mess the u.s. swaggers through the world, latent racism, or any number of other talking points. whether any of that registers or not, will smith delivers a performance full of nuance, in what could have easily been a walk on portrayal of a very flawed man that still tries to do what he thinks is right - even when literally all of l.a. wishes that he wouldn't.
some critics have whined about the sudden plot shift a bit more than halfway in. we liked that part, but wish it could have been given more time to have some impact (and that they'd given more time to the bad guy, who has the shortest screen time of any supervillain in history). the whole last half hour feels rushed and unsatisfying. did they do sudden, last-minute surgery and leave out key scenes?
to be frank, the biggest problem is that somewhere around this point, hancock forgets whether it's a drama or a comedy. it could have been both - the spiderman films are a recent example of a successful marriage of the two... well, except for number 3 - but it's not. it would be interesting to read the original draft of the script, just to see where it went.
even with the holes, hancock deserves a look, if only for what it says about us, and about our expectations regarding our heroes.