Hancock

Not only is Smith cast perfectly for comedy and buffness, but he also has the dramatic chops to pull off the film's heavier scenes. He's appealing as the crude hero and the troubled man inside.

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.

Exciting and amusing, in just the right measure, with world-class special effects to enable an easy suspension of disbelief.

Hancock mixes its sappier sentiments and moral uprightness with doses of edgy, dark comedy, literal and visual profanity and, midway through, a major, major surprise twist.

It's so efficiently made, briskly paced and zestily acted it seems to zoom past faster than you can say, "Would a sequel be too much to ask for?"

It has some hilarious comedy, some great action, and a few surprises that fortunately haven't been ruined by the commercials and trailers.

Hancock takes off at right angles, essentially turning into M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, as seen through the big action lens of modern superhero movies like Iron Man and the Spider-Man series.

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

A sardonically funny comedy grafted after an hour onto a heavy emotional story and an explanation of events that makes less sense the longer you ponder it.

The movie has a lot of laughs, but Smith avoids playing Hancock as a goofball and shapes him as serious, thoughtful and depressed.

A sputtering, frequently bewildering mishmash that doesn’t find its voice until the final 20 minutes.

Hancock isn't a typical superhero movie, and while its humor is sharp and its quirkiness delightful, it's bound to earn shrugs from hardcore fanboys counting the days until the release of The Dark Knight.

Director Peter Berg knows the difference between cartoon violence and the real stuff, and Hancock mixes both to good effect.

It's all hugely entertaining until the final reel, when the film tries for a tragic dimension it can't handle.

Hancock is a rarity. It's an action yarn that feels like a drama and, alternately, a drama that takes our breath away with bursts of eye-popping action.

Hancock is an original, and that makes it in no way a safe or predictable motion picture choice for its leading man.

About half-way through Hancock you're faced with the sudden suspicion that the movie's premise might in fact be the sum total of the movie. It's not a bad premise, mind you.

Although the film occasionally hints at dark themes, it quickly discards them in its eagerness to please. Still, Smith and Bateman have terrific chemistry, and Theron is thoroughly charismatic.

The filmmakers use the second half as a box-office insurance policy. They fill it with the conventional super-heroics and heartbreak that they spend the first 45 minutes gleefully deconstructing.

Hancock provides laughs and some amusing action sequences, but really isn't the movie being heavily promoted in trailers and commercials.

What begins as a sarcastic dark comedy shifts into adult drama and fierce conflicts with fatal consequences, which director Peter Berg delivers with unnerving intensity.

Hancock is intermittently amusing and ultimately puzzling. Not even Will Smith could pull this one out of the fire.

Theron doesn't really have the comic touch, but Bateman and Smith certainly do, making the most of so-so dialogue. This may be one of Smith's darkest roles, but it also could be the funniest you've ever seen him.

With Hancock, Smith no doubt will reclaim his Fourth of July crown. He wears it well, even if the writers and director have pawned some of its jewels and left it with a few dings in the precious metal.

The humans are all fine, but they tend to be overwhelmed by the special effects, and it must be said that the effects here are particularly flimsy.

Hancock is a mess, a seven-car pile-up of conflicting ideas and storylines, overloaded with effects and painted with an unappetizing layer of handheld-camera grit.

One of the most realistic and stimulating superhero movies in a long while, until it slams into a brick wall about an hour into its 92-minute run.

Director Peter Berg and cinematographer Tobias Schliessler favor a visual style that can best be described as Serious Focus on the Eyeball.

Unfortunately, even with Smith's considerable charms and his proven track record as Independence Day weekend movie god, Hancock doesn't succeed as a truly satisfying holiday-movie blockbuster.

A jaw-dropping twist, while inspired, turns out to be what drags the movie down, creating an irresolvable situation from which the film never recovers.

Though often very enjoyable, it's going to leave many viewers scratching their heads in puzzlement or wishing they could chop the tale in two, with each of its halves fulfilling its promise on different screens of the multiplex.

Despite all the bad buzz that's surrounded Hancock these last few months, it was a surprise to discover that it isn't a train wreck but rather a frustrating disappointment given all the talent involved.

Peter Berg is one of the few directors who can handle comedy and action, and the movie is enjoyable, despite being tinged with a bit more sadness than advertised.

Halfway through the movie pauses, shrugs and wonders where to go next, scrapping most of the heroes-need-love psychology and adding an absurd backstory just to pump up the action.

Director Peter Berg gives the movie an action-packed start with a freeway chase-and-crash sequence, but it soon becomes obvious that Berg's chief interest in Hancock is smashing stuff up.

We watch a charismatic actor suffocated by a role that becomes more downbeat than fans expect or deserve. After Hancock, Bruce Wayne seems like a happy-go-lucky guy.

What does one say about a movie that wants laughs from a shot of one inmate's head up the derriere of another? Well, there's "ouch." But there's also "why?"

Despite having a few "wow" moments, this is one of the more frustratingly inconsistent movies in recent memory.

Will Smith and a great cast are unfortunately not enough to make Hancock anything more than a soaring disappointment in this summer’s superhero movie sweepstakes.

Besides its erratic tone, the CGI set pieces are generic and the performances are perfunctory.

The film was produced by Akiva Goldsman, who won a screenwriting Oscar for A Beautiful Mind but also stalled the Batman franchise for nearly a decade with Batman and Robin. He might have been better off staying away from superheroes.

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.

The first half of the film builds a solid foundation for an extraordinary film, but that footing evaporates when the filmmakers move forward. The second half of the film generally feels rushed, as it moves on a bustling pace toward its big finale.

Eager not to overstay its welcome, Hancock ultimately sheds essential exposition in a mad, foolish dash to the finish line.

Will Smith turns his image upside-down in Hancock, playing a superhero who's in desperate need of an intervention -- and a coherent plot.

The good cast does what it can with the weak material, but the waste of talent only makes the film's total failure that much more regrettable.

What starts out with a sense of quirky fun loses direction and devolves into a mishmash of story lines. The finished product is so poorly conceived and misguided that even Will Smith, with all his charm, can't save it.

Hancock has about 50 minutes of action and dark, edgy humour before it veers off into cheese land. The film switches gears in an inexplicable and genuinely bizarre fashion.

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

Will Smith’s Hancock is a summer popcorn movie that’s a ton of poppycock revolving around a boozy, unlikely superhero who tries to redeem himself with the advice of a kindly public relations man .

A misconceived, misguided bomb, the film will be remembered mostly as a blip in an otherwise major career and a sign that everyone, even the one-time Fresh Prince, can have a bad day.

Not even Smith's charisma can mitigate the chaos that is Hancock.

This movie fails so spectacularly -- and on so many levels -- that it's like watching a train plummet off a bridge.

Director Peter Berg busily fills the film with handheld, jittery extreme close-ups (it's like the world's most expensive indie movie), but leaves out most of the fun.

A mass of shaky close-ups, often shot off center and occasionally drifting out of focus. Berg probably thinks it looks, like, way "verite." Instead it just looks like an old Dockers commercial.