Hancock: Critic Reviews

Hancock the jaunty, jokey riff on the screwed-up inner emotional life of a traditionally ironclad superhero becomes Hancock the icky lesson in the importance of personal responsibility, loyalty, and continued family togetherness.

Hancock makes for one unexpectedly satisfying and kinky addition to Hollywood's superhero chronicles.

It becomes an entirely different film, one not really premised on the bad-superhero comedy idea, and the film is then oddly without a sense of humour, and its vague interest in satire vanishes completely.

What starts out with a sense of quirky fun loses direction and devolves into a mishmash of story lines.

The problem is that director Peter Berg, aided and abetted by Smith and Theron and third banana Jason Bateman, seem to have made it literally, not realizing its out-of-whack tonalities and grotesque plot twists were meant to be played for laughs.

What does one say about a movie that wants laughs from a shot of one inmate's head up the derriere of another?

It doesn't take itself as seriously as it should, and undercuts a final act that should have and so could have packed a mighty emotional wallop.

There's a great idea here, but it's buried within a muddled story that lurches between dark comedy and maudlin drama.

A new movie that makes the previous pandemonium seem downright restrained.

Credit must be paid to director Peter Berg for pulling off such a tricky balance of such diverse elements while delivering an impressive and affecting superhero adventure with as much heart and soul as sound and fury.

Part of the joke lies in seeing a megawatt star embrace his inner grouch with fantastical blunders, and part of the anticipation lies in seeing Hancock become, well, Will Smith.

Since The Pursuit of Happyness, actor-producer Smith has made no secret of his desire to make movies that entertain in that big-studio way but also dig deeper. Hancock is a rousing measure of that intent.

Hancock suggests new visual directions and emotional tonalities for pop. It's by far the most enjoyable big movie of the summer.

Hancock is a lot of fun, if perhaps a little top-heavy with stuff being destroyed.

In this highly superheroic summer of Iron Man and the forthcoming The Dark Knight, Hancock can offer only an A-list headliner in a D-list project.

As popcorn movies go, this is fleet, funny, and even thoughtful: its central question, nicely underplayed by director Peter Berg, is why power and altruism never seem to intersect.

Thanks to Smith, it's a story about movie stars -- and why the multiplex-going humankind needs to have them kicking around, too.

Almost any moviegoer should be able to find something to enjoy, but it's hard to imagine anyone liking this mishmash from beginning to end.

Hancock is the sort of Fourth of July cinematic fireworks celebration Hollywood dreams about but rarely achieves.

A ton of potential, but ultimately a mess.

This misguided attempt to wring a novel twist on the superhero genre has a certain whiff of The Last Action Hero about it.

Leaving behind the laughs for schmaltz, Hancock chickens out at the last minute, lurching toward a cop-out happy ending that gives every indication of having been reshot at the behest of test audiences. Well, at least you won't be bored.

Passable if profane, Hancock chugs along right up to that when this comic superhero engine goes off the tracks, and pretty much off a cliff.

Hancock is still worth seeing, if only for a glimpse of what might have been a truly innovative idea.