Hancock

"So I walk into a screening of Hancock, hoping for something along the black-humoured lines of Bad Santa. Despite a lacklustre opening salvo, with some crummy CGI, it seems to be heading in the right direction. “McDonalds fucked you up,” says Hancock to a fat man. He’s drunk, he’s careless, he’s an asshole."

"The effects are snazzy, even if they pass by quite quickly, and there's enough going on to keep audiences watching, if not entirely happy. Smith, Theron and Bateman capably handle the main roles, but such is the skimpiness of the scenario that no further characters make any impact."

"Will Smith memorably starred in sci-fi movies called things such as I, Robot and I Am Legend. This one could be called I, Asshole or I Am Asshole, or perhaps just Asshole."

"Bateman doesn't make a false move, and a stellar Charlize Theron springs her own bolts from the blue as Ray's wife. As for Smith, he's on fire. There's nothing like a star shining on his highest beams. You follow him anywhere."

"Hancock is like watching a car crash in slow motion. Fortunately it's more of an amusing one than tragic, but it's messy all the same."

"The first 30 minutes are fun, this is such an inspired idea for a superhero movie. Which makes its sudden unexpected and unfortunate downward trajectory even more disappointing."

"The script - daft, wildly uneven, derivative and confused, though it may be - is also genuinely funny, nicely paced, and mercifully short."

"The ideas run out before the movie does, and the mood shifts dramatically about halfway through with some not-funny-at-all violence, but the film-makers deserve points for not being afraid to tinker with the superhero genre."