I don’t intend to go see Hancock, but my prediction is that it’s going to suffer from the same problem Heroes does: its creators wanted to play with the superhero genre but don’t know much about it. Most of this stuff has been done before, probably better, but since they don’t know that they can’t add much of a new spin on it. As Heidi McDonald puts it:
The plot and premise here reminds me of what I would see back in the day when I was editing whenever some Hollywood guy or gal pitched me some ideas—they would be some kind of simple, deconstructed idea that would never get past the slush pile at Marvel or DC because they were so simple and direct—a regular man must deal with the effects of getting superpowers on his family (Unbreakable), what if a superheroine dated a regular guy (My Super Ex-Girlfriend), what if a superhero was a drunk (Hancock).
It’s funny, come to think of it, how many sci-fi movies Smith has done. Independence Day, Men In Black, I, Robot, I Am Legend, and throw in Wild Wild West as steampunk. I like that he brings this stuff to the mainstream, but in this superhero overkill summer, you’re probably better off to wait two weeks for The Dark Knight.