What would you do if you were invulnerable and could fly?

I'm not talking about the way things work in the comic books. I mean the real world. Imagine you could fly. Would you worry about planes? Avoid birds? Try not to smash into buildings?

What if you were invulnerable and immensely strong? Would you be careful about how you were around people and other delicate things such as cars?

Would you try to be a hero?

I've always thought that a story about Superman based in the real world, not a comic book world, would be very interesting. Hancock attempts that very thing. There are elements to the movie that are very well done but in the end falls a bit flat. Worse it leaves us with intriguing possibilities that are totally skipped over or forgotten.

Hancock, the character, is a mystery to the world. He doesn't know who he is or where he came from. He tries to do good but it so spectacularly bad at it that most people wish he wouldn't try. He's a lost soul that doesn't know his place in the world and at the same time he's so different he can't just disappear into the crowd.

The movie starts on a very solid footing. We see Hancock being woken by a small kid while he's passed out on a street bench. The kid informs him of a police chase on the freeway. For some reason Hancock then feels the need to fly off to stop the chase. He clearly does not enjoy the thought of flying off to the rescue but he does anyway. It's as if he is compelled to try to help.

Hancock blasts off, literally in fact, destroying the bench he was sleeping on. His flying style is rather unconventional as he narrowly misses an airliner and flies through a flock of birds. He lands in the back seat of the car the bad guys are in, totally ignoring the fact it is not a convertible. A couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages later he's caught the bad guys and flies off. Nobody is happy about it either.

Later Hancock rescues Ray, a failing PR guy, from being hit by a train when he stupidly stopped his car in front of said train. Hancock's lack of properly coming to the rescue causes him to derail the train. Even though everyone correctly points out he could have just moved the car out of the way, and then moved himself of the tracks to avoid the derailment, Ray decides to turn the crowd in Hancock's favor. After all, he did save Ray's life.

Nothing is said about the conductors of the train that are probably dead at this point.

Ray takes Hancock home to introduce him to his family. His son, predictably, is awed by Hancock. His wife seems uncomfortable around him, which means they have a connection of some sort. Actors portraying people in movies are required to portray them as bad actors in such situations, its in the rules.

Ray, being the PR guy, decides to help Hancock change his persona and public standing. He convinces Hancock to willingly go to prison to show he feels regret at his destructive actions. Ray feels that eventually something will happen that will convince everyone that they really need Hancock. He doesn't like the idea but Hancock goes through with it until he gets the call Ray was predicting.

Some guys have decided to rob a bank and somehow managed to get caught doing so, despite their clever plan of robbing the bank in the middle of the day. And apparently a work day at that. They are heavily armed and the police are quickly overwhelmed. The police captain calls in Hancock to save the day. He manages to do so without seriously hurting anyone. Well, the innocent bystanders are safe anyway, not so much with the bad guys. The scene does have some clever ideas for uses of his powers though. Otherwise, the scene is a bit slow, not terribly exciting.

A nice dinner scene sets up Hancock's history. He actually does not know who he is. He was mugged eighty years ago and suffered a knocked noggin that caused amnesia. In a clever bit, someone at the hospital, who apparently didn't know he had amnesia, asked him to sign his discharge papers with his "John Hancock". Which he did, which is how he came to be called Hancock. He explains a bit on his powers also pointing out that he was obviously immortal.

Hancock eventually makes a move on Ray's wife and she promptly slams him with the fridge through the front wall into the street. A sad attempt to cover this up leads to Hancock questioning Ray's wife about who they are and partly asks why he's suddenly so hot for her when he doesn't know who she is. The wife throws caution to the wind and ignores years of hiding her identity by then playing chase with Hancock through the city causing much damage. Apparently Hancock's causing damage is a symptom of the powers as opposed to his carefree attitude.

They have a nice fight scene in the middle of the city which is fine since she's no longer in hiding. They fight causing more damage and somehow causing tornadoes to appear. The fighting was actually kind of interesting until the tornadoes. They just seem to be there because they're "cool". It makes absolutely no sense for them to be there and this is the sign of the downhill slide of the movie.

Ray has witnessed the fight and recognized his wife. He takes it rather well considering the circumstances. We are then given the explanation that beings like Hancock and her were built in pairs and belong together. But the side effect of them being together is that they lose their powers and become vulnerable. Except they don't die of natural causes since she tells him they've been together for thousands of years.

This whole bit about their back story was both intriguing and stupid at the same time. They opened lots of possibilities of where they could go with it but most of it was dropped and/or unexplained. Even the possibility of a group that were always hunting for the pair was brought up but then dropped. This is where Hancock had lots of cool thoughts that were not properly followed through with. Evidently the real answers are intended for sequels which is apparently the money making scheme these days. Write up a good story and immediately cut it up into two or three parts to maximize potential profits. Even if that means we have lots of plot holes and stupidity in our movie.

I won't go into the ending because I don't want to give everything away. The ending makes sense within the rules that have been presented in the movie but it is still a letdown of an ending. But it's a decent flick and Will Smith is in it, give it a chance.

Especially if you like superhero films.