WILL SMITH - MOVIE REVIEWS: HANCOCK

Although Will Smith has become as visible on an Independence Day weekend as the American flag, he may be facing a bit of a challenge this weekend if early reviews of his latest movie, Hancock , is any indication. The movie opens at midnight tonight in many major cities, and several critics are posting their reviews today (Tuesday). "This movie fails so spectacularly -- and on so many levels -- that it's like watching a train plummet off a bridge," writes Lou Lumenick in the New York Post . Smith himself gets a pass from critics for his portrayal of an alcoholic everyman with superpowers who has little interest in saving humanity -- a kind of super anti-hero. "It's a strange feeling to see the summer's most promising premise self-destruct into something bizarre and unsatisfying, but that is the Hancock experience," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Or as Claudia Puig puts it in USA Today : "The finished product is so poorly conceived and misguided that even Will Smith, with all his charm, can't save it." Likewise Michael Phillips comments in the Chicago Tribune : "Not even Smith's charisma can mitigate the chaos that is Hancock ." Nevertheless, the film does get a few so-so reviews. Peter Howell writes in the Toronto Star : " Hancock is still worth seeing, if only for a glimpse of what might have been a truly innovative idea." And Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times gives the movie three stars and concludes that it's "a lot of fun, if perhaps a little top-heavy with stuff being destroyed."

01/07/2008