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."
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