He drinks hard, swears at children (who curse him in turn), rarely shaves, never smiles. Worse, he has lousy superhero style, with sneakers and shorts (no cape), and buggy sunglasses that hide his (X-ray?) eyes. His takeoffs and landings are a mess: sloppy and violent, they invariably leave a heap of trouble and general rubble in his wake.

The story really starts when Hancock saves Ray (Jason Bateman) from being flattened by a freight train. In typical fashion, Hancock botches the save. He plucks Ray from death, but in the process derails the train and, also true to bad form, receives an invective-laced earful from the gathering mob. Struck by the crowd's hostility, Ray, a public relations guy with a do-gooder streak decides to rescue Hancock in turn by giving him a superhero makeover.

"Hancock" is far from perfect－it feels overly rushed, particularly toward its chaotic end－but it has a raggedness that speaks honestly to the fundamental human fragility that makes the greatest heroes super.