Hancock

My Rating: 3 stars

My Angle: A really poor advertizing job makes this movie an unpleasant experience for many. As is often the case with comic book based movies lots of pagan references. However, it opens an interesting discussion on immortality.

Kid friendly: absolutely not!

Spiritual issues: What if we are all immortal? This movie delves into the human problem of immortality but fails to understand that the human soul is immortal.


This movie only barely gets its 3 star rating because I thought I was sitting down to a fun, "super hero is drunk, gets sober, and does good plot". What I got was very complex, dark, at times upsetting, and the ending was 30 minutes of gut wrenching emotion.

The movie explores a lot of super hero "what ifs": what if he was a drunk, what if he was unpopular, not nice, etc. Early in the movie it gets into super hero sex (part of what makes this movie so completely not child friendly).

John Hancock is the main character. Up to a point in his life he has no memory (that was 80 years ago), he's bitter, angry, drunk, and at times stupid. He helps people but often his help is as bad as or worse than the problem.

One day he meets a PR guy and saves his life and the plot starts predictably from there before it goes way off into a very complex and dark place.

The movie has a depth that is done a disservice by its unpredictability (resulting from its surprise ending). This is further exacerbated by poor marketing.

Bill Crawford, The Bayou Christian