Super Drunk

Don't drink and drive. With near indestructible bodies capable of reaching speeds well over a 100 miles an hour, cars driven by inebriated drivers claimed 13,470 lives in 2006 alone. What if rather than our cars, our very persons were near indestructible, capable of reaching speeds well over a 100 miles an hour? Could you quit the bottle for keeps? Hancock can't. Won't. Doesn't give a damn to. His body isn't near indestructible, it is indestructible. And he's strong enough to carry an SUV one-handed. While flying. Drunk.

Backed by the soulful soundtrack wail of a delta blues harmonica, the opening scene of "Hancock" finds the title hero (Will Smith), whisky bottle in hand, passed out on a street bench as a high speed chase sprays bullets into L.A. traffic nearby. Bleary eyed he puts an end to that, impaling the enemy SUV on the spire of a downtown tower but not before DUI-swerving into a freeway sign, sending it crashing down onto the pursuing police cruisers now screeching, flipping, flaming to a stop. When Batman destroys police property, it's all a misunderstanding. When Hancock destroys police property, understanding doesn't figure at all-for either side-as Hancock says, "Life here can be difficult for me, after all, I'm the only one of my kind."

The film itself adopts not only Hancock's name, but also his persona: loud, fast, blockbusting and drunk (i.e. haphazard, sad, hilarious, entertaining, if not a little bit sloppy). Alone in the world, booze and blues dull the edges of his sorrow: Where Batman has the batcave, Hancock has the dive bar. Ageless, though unable to remember further back than 80 years (and not because of the liquor), Hancock drowns the pain of a past life. True to the blues, he pines unknowingly for the lover who left him long ago, a lover who tells him "I didn't think you could miss what you didn't remember."

Halfway through the film Hancock employs the public relations services of family man Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman). Ray convinces him to accept a prison sentence away from abusive Angelinos who can't know how good they have it till it's gone. Anger management and alcohol abuse treatment leech the blues out of his life; no longer the broken badass, when he sobers up he finds he's less indestructible than before-mortal even (same old story: invincible when drunk, bruised and broken upon next morning's inspection. Only later does the film provide a reason apart from alcohol for Hancock's diminishing powers). The rest of the film plays a lot like a hangover.

Outfitted in a tight leather hero suit with gold piping (apparently he joined the Latin Kings while in prison), his sideburns tapered to a point along his jaw, Hancock's look harks back to "Fresh Prince" days. His triumphant return from exile shifts the tone of the film from cavalier crusading to polite policework (even Robo cop, a cop and a robot, grooved harder).

The movie itself doesn't catch the "Hancock's reform" memo but continues to lean and careen drunkenly. The main fight scene would have done well to employ martial arts master Yuen Wo Ping ("The Matrix," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Kill Bill"). Instead, the director seems to have assigned its choreography to the CGI department: three tornadoes converge on a downtown L.A., street sweeping Hancock and his foe into their vortices; the scene is not a showcase for the skills of a centuries old superhero but a eye-affronting blur of wind, crumbling buildings, locked arms and clenched jaws.

Hangover, sloppiness and brawling fights aside, people drink to excess for a reason-as Hancock knows, the entertainment inevitably occasioned by alcohol easily excuses its faults.

Tags: FILM PREMIER