Hancock is not a good movie, per se. I do think it's an interesting failure worth viewing. The film starts off well enough with an interesting premise that gets explored for roughly a half-hour before the plot throws a curve-ball. It could have worked, but the movie tries to shoehorn everything into 90 minutes, thus giving short shrift to the complexities of the situation as presented.
One of the mysteries the movie puts out there is the origin of Hancock. As an amnesiac, Will Smith's anti-hero (if you can even call him that) struggles with questions of identity. Great, I can roll with that. When we finally find out who he is, the why's and wherefore's, I was a bit surprised at the subtext the writer weaved into it. It was bold, but that also made it problematic. The issue with Hancock's origin reveal is that the film isn't constructed in a way to support the weight of it. Nothing that precedes it suggests that the film will aspire to anything more than your typical lightweight action flick. I actually found Charlize Theron's monologue in which she explained Hancock to himself quite moving, but it belonged in a better movie.
I hear a sequel is a possibility. Perhaps the creative team involved can make good on the potential the concept holds.
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