It’s a sign of ambition that “Hancock,” formerly titled “Tonight, He Comes,” resists the Hollywood ray-gun Categorizer. But this resistance leads to multiple marketing personality disorder, which can be kryptonite in the game of hype and expectations studios play with audiences. When movie consumers are assumed to have mental landscapes defined by boxes, chimeras like “Hancock” become challenging exercises in tailoring audience perceptions to reality, or vice-versa, in an effort to fill seats. So is “Hancock” an action movie? A comedy? A drama? Bring in the hyphens – it’s an action-comedy…until it isn’t. It’s a comedy-drama – a dramedy! Well, kinda, sorta . What about the action? Maybe we should just call it an action-dramedy and leave it at that – although the film really is a character study. See what I mean? Chimera. “Hancock” is a film that frustrates genre expectations and plugs in different variables in the superhero formula.

A Closer Look at the Personality

While there is action, very little of it aims for the mind-blowing spectacle of all those other big-name superhero movies. The refreshing matter-of-factness with which Hancock’s powers are treated is far from the usual gee-whiz attention lavished on superhuman abilities, but for a reason. This is a film that doesn’t wallow in the novelty of superpowers, but strives to examine the personality behind the man who wields them and the consequences of his actions.

And the comedy? There are laughs, certainly, and the vulgar ones are over-the-top, but for the most part the comedy has a hard-edge derived from an genuine underlying drama. An early scene of Hancock flying while drunk is comical, and also an example of how damaged he is – humour isn’t used to make light of the character’s problem, but to avoid sucking the will to live out of depressed audiences. So when a pivotal revelation does occur, the film’s tone doesn’t so much change as refines. The comic veneer is set aside, but not abandoned, for more hard-hitting drama as the challenges he faces pile on and Smith, Bateman and Theron become embroiled

If anything, it’s Peter Berg’s utilitarian direction that doesn’t offer the script all the support it needs. While professional and generally effective, “Hancock” also lacks a certain panache, a visual style that can provide a steady baseline to latch onto while the story goes about its genre-defying business of examining what makes Hancock tick. But the script at least contains some nice ideas, including a regrettably incomplete explanation for Hancock’s powers that doesn’t stem from the usual comic book clichés, and the beginnings of an arch-nemesis that pokes fun at supervillain tropes without getting goofy. Also appealing is how the film doesn’t ridicule Ray and his desire to make the world a better place. Not a helpless, well-meaning boob played solely for comic effect, Ray is smart and adult – an enjoyably quiet heroic counterpoint to Hancock.

Spotty execution, yes, but also very enjoyable for its ambition and maturity. The fuss over changes in tone or the degree to which “Hancock” starts out in one genre only to change is, in the end, tantamount to painting the herring red. “Hancock” aims to be to Superman what “Batman Begins” is to Batman: a gritty, realistic, humanizing, and generally successful take on the mythology of modern-day comic book heroes.