After reading Thraxxus review of Hankock, a movie that caused him to basically write off all critics as hacks, I was curious enough to check it out. Like him, I was amazed at critics’ commentaries. Not the concensus that the movie sucked, which was not 100%, but the consensus that Hancock goes off the rails about halfway through. Let me assure you now – it doesn’t just go off the rails, it takes out a busload of nuns and then plummets off a cliff.

First, let me take you back to a happier time and place. The beginning of the movie, when we meet Will Smith’s character. Was he unlikable? Sure. I could relate to the fact that every two minutes someone called him an asshole. Certainly this was the biggest prick Mr. Smith has ever played, and so far so good. Then Hancock meets Jason Bateman, who is a PR Man with a heart of gold (about as rare as an arctic fox). Admittedly, Jason Bateman is one of my favorite actors so they had me from the start. The fact that he wants to rehab Hancock’s image and set him straight is very believable, and fairly original for this genre. Side note: I am totally convinced that Bateman is totally drunk for every role. If you have seen Dodgeball, or the DVD extras for Juno, you know exactly what I am talking about. Nonetheless, the acting overall was excellent. After last seeing Charlize Theron in Monster, it was nice to see her back to her ravishing self (including her eyebrows). So, up to this point I have described how “this film was about an anti hero persona coming to grips with the world around him and trying to be accepted into it”, as Thraxxus describes it very accurately.

Well, then the entire movie goes wrong – this is not an exaggeration. Five minutes of backstory is insufficient for the shit that was about to go down. Why is Charlize and Smith’s characters fighting? Sure, they had history, but I never saw it and therefore I did not care a whit. I agree with Thraxxus that Charlize Theron did the best job possible to make this twist work, but she was swimming upstream. As for the “villain”, he was just merely there as a convenient plot pusher. Finally, mercifully, the hospital scene was a huge slice of stinky cheese. Oh, hello Bateman – you are still here? Make yourself useful. Then, the movie wrapped up into a nice, audience-pleasing bow. I hate to quote a snotty critic, but the movie “rewrote its own internal logic in order to pander to its audience”. BARF.

So here’s what I’m saying – there are warning signs, besides just critic response, when choosing what movies to watch. The only reason this movie got made is because Will Smith was attached, and that sets off an alarm by itself. Hancock was in development in one way or another for almost twelve years. Numerous directors were attached, including Michael Mann, while the script went through many rewrites. You could almost hear the gears grinding in the movie, and it struggled because of it.