Uh oh! Here comes “Hancock”!

Hancock (played by Will Smith) isn’t your average superhero. He doesn’t care. Really, he doesn’t. He’s Superman without the perfect conscience, and it’s about time a movie was made about an imperfect superhero. No one is as squeaky clean as Superman is with his flashing smile and impeccable morals. Sure, we’d all like to be as nice as Superman is, but sometimes we wake up on the wrong side of the bed and we’re not the superstars we wish we were all the time. Hancock never wakes up on the right side of the bed, and he’s not going to take crap from anyone.

His superpowers have given him god-like powers. He is unbreakable, and he uses this with abandon. A path of destruction follows him wherever he goes, and people are not happy with him. Whenever he takes off, whatever is beneath him crumbles from the force of his liftoff. When he lands, it’s like a golf playing giant put a divot in the asphalt. He throws whales in the ocean, sinking yachts. Lawsuits against him are piling up. These are the real consequences of unchecked physical power, and something had to be done.

If you were indestructible with super strength and could fly, you too wouldn’t travel like a super ballerina within a major city, deftly missing huge obstacles like buildings and cars. One distraction and CRASH!, you’d fly right through a window. One thing this film does really well is to show that being a superhero would be tougher than you think, and that personal feelings and agendas would make for a selfish super-being who wouldn't just save people out of the goodness of their heart. Sure, the damsel in distress may be easy to spot, or the guy stuck on the train tracks about to get t-boned by a freight train a no brainer, but as an example, police often must make judgment calls based on assumptions that may or may not be correct. Can you imagine that on a much larger scale, a superhero flying into a sticky situation without knowing exactly what was going on or the difference between the good and bad guys? This is why there’s a collegiate study called “Criminal Justice,” and it’s taken by those in law enforcement. There are right ways to deal with criminal activities, and it’s not always easy to tell right from wrong in an unfolding situation. It’s also not easy to keep infrastructure intact when someone is indestructible and super strong.

“Hancock” tells the story of what it might look like for a superhero in the real world. It ain’t pretty, but it is entertaining!