And what kind of cockamamie superhero calls himself Hancock, anyway?
The etiquette on this matter is quite clear. You can be Hairdryer Man or Chlamydia Girl. You can take a single noun (Mongoose!) or definite article (The Dumpster!) if appropriate. But there is simply no precedent for calling yourself after a dead American president or miserable British comic. Until now.
Hancock, like 2004’s underrated Special, dares to be different. The title character, a bad-tempered drunk who seems determined to make The Dark Knight’s angsty posturing look like a wussy tea party, is not so much a superhero as an anti-superhero. It takes almost all of Will Smith’s immense reserves of charm to carry it off. As the film opens, Mr. Smith is universally despised for his sloppy vigilantism. Enter the delightful Jason Bateman, a decent minded PR wonk whose gentle pleas for greater corporate charitable handouts seem to fall on deaf ears. He picks Hancock up, brushes him down and relaunches him as a kinder, less destructive entity. Hancock repays his new champion by making eyes at his missus (Charlize Theron).
An hour-and-a-half of SFX spectacle and decent family entertainment soon follows. But wait. Are we missing something? Why bother to set up an intriguing nexus of sexual jealousy between two of the planet’s biggest stars and then not follow through?
The film’s chequered history may provide some clues. Written as a spec script by James Ngo, Hancock was originally acquired by Tony Scott then passed to an eager Michael Mann, who appears in this finished version and who also helped produce. When Mr. Mann became tied up with his upcoming Dillinger biopic, he drafted in Peter Berg to take the reins. The Kingdom director turned in an R rated film which has, in turn, and with scant regard for continuity, been hacked down to a PG entertainment.
Beneath the All-Ages gloss, there are hints of the smart, thrilling grown up movie that might have been. No wonder the studio balked.