He may look like a boozed-up street bum--in fact, that's exactly what he is. But Will Smith's character "Hancock" turns
out to be a lot more than even
he is aware of.
For some time now, as of the opening of this film, superpower-ed John Hancock (so named because the nurse where he regained consciousness after an amnesia-resulting mishap asked him to sign his John Hancock on the release form) has been dividing his time between fighting crime on the streets of L.A. and maintaining himself on a perpetual drunken bender which results in plenty of unintentional
destruction of public and private property, as well as offensive personal behavior that gets him dubbed the city's most notable jerk (or a--h---, as it is put in movie-speak literally a hundred times or so throughout the film).
Fate steps in, in the form of an idealistic PR man played convincingly by Jason Bateman, who, with his wife Mary and young son Aaron, bring some tenderness and humanity into Hancock's alcohol-driven life. When Hancock saves Ray Embrey's (Bateman) life from an oncoming train, the promoter takes him under his wing to reform his image in the eyes of a largely indignant public. Reluctantly, Hancock allows himself to be put in prison to pay for his crimes of destruction and drunken mayhem, agrees to attend anger and alcohol recovery classes, and even ends up donning a souped up uniform after swearing vehemently that he'd fight crime naked first.
Hancock begins to care about Ray and his family, but then discovers that Ray's wife is in reality a fellow immortal in disguise, keeping her own superpowers under wraps in order to live a normal life. The two titans are irresistably drawn to each other, which adds up to some high-action, violent
complications such as when Mary throws Hancock through the wall of their suburban home into the street along with the family refrigerator.
The story, in spite of these complications, is really quite simple. Hancock must come to grips with who and what he is and where his powers come from. He learns the truth from Mary in the course of the movie, and some tension is achieved by engaging our curiosity as to whom Mary will finally choose, mortal or immortal, when all the dust and bad guys settle.
All in all, it made for an enjoyable film, although much of the foul language was tiresome and unnecessary. With the allusions to "gods" and "godhood" in the movie, I found myself wondering where the superhuman virtues and values were that ought to coincide with the superhuman muscle. The story itself was a bit of a letdown, as I was hoping for a further exploration of Ray's and Aaron's feelings and motivations, which never really seemed to matter much.
And Hancock's motivation for crimefighting didn't seem to go beyond responding violently to people calling him an a--h---. So he really ended up rather two-dimensional as well. Oh, well, his reformation is only just beginning, apparently.