So what’s it all about?

Soon after her divorce, a fiction writer returns to her home in small-town Minnesota, looking to rekindle a romance with her ex-boyfriend, who is now happily married and has a newborn daughter.

The writer is fading in her ability to sustain her ghost-writing career. Even when she tells her parents she’s an alcoholic, they ignore her plea for help, so she invests time and energy in believing the unbelievable – her current married ex would take her back, even though he has a wife and a new baby just a few weeks old.

Charlize Theron acts to her usual award winning standard. Her ability to perform with such a high quality throughout this movie is worth the ticket price alone.

Jason Reitman’s direction is first class, but that isn’t so difficult when you have the incredible Diablo Cody writing your screenplay. It’s more the lines that are almost throwaways that capture the essence of this script, not necessarily the lines you hear first time around.

The only negatives to take from this movie are the expectations that Charlize’s character would sleep with the disabled guy -so blatantly obvious – and the end of the movie was clear from the opening scenes. Balanced by the frankness of the dialogue, this is another Diablo masterpiece.

She is quickly becoming the new Joe Eszterhaus.

This movie leaves you feeling good and sympathetic with Ms Theron’s character, but you feel sorry for her dog, throughout. Take that dog for a walk, will you?

Movie trailers are supposed to entice you to want to go watch and experience the movie or download legally when it’s available. The problem arises when trailers either show you too much giving the game away or simply being so irrelevant that the movie you finally see wasn’t the movie you expected.

Trailers run from one to two minutes and are generally from the first third of a movie which covers the introduction so you know who the characters are and what the movie is going to be about. If they have some exceptional stunts and crashes from later in the movie, you may get to see them in the trailer providing it doesn’t give the story away and saves you spending your dollars at the theatre.

Take Hancock from July 2008. Many wish you would, it was such a disappointment. If you saw the trailer you may not know this was to be a superhero comic book film. You will have known that Will Smith gets to play a man with super powers and the explosions and stunts will get you to your theatre seat.

What you won’t know is about the unexpected and wonderful performance by Charlize Theron who takes the movie into another stratosphere leaving Will Smith to play his regular movie character. Theron is the real star although you’ve been duped into believing that Smith was.The second half of the film bears no resemblance to the first half – you could almost be watching a different movie. The poster doesn’t even feature it’s best star.

The lesson to be learnt is that just having star names doesn’t make a movie great, but showing a trailer that bears little resemblance to the movie just isn’t fair.

Edward Bovingdon of Yahoo UK Movies Features suggests a few more trailer failures.

2 stars**

The real star of this movie is not the superhero as expected, but Charlize Theron. She provides the film’s one real twist and then becomes the obvious star. Her acting ability has never been in question and here she proves, yet again, that she really knows how to perform. She becomes her role as she moves from past life to current life. The twist (and what movie could be without one) was so good I never saw it coming. When you see it (and I won’t spoil it for you here) you’ll know what a surprise it was. She takes us on a roller coaster ride from high emotions to constant fear, from concerned mother and wife to ecstatic world saver.

So what’s it all about? John Hancock (played by Will Smith – slightly better than your recent films, Will) is a miserable, alcoholic superhero who is living in his own sad and lonely world. He has saved numerous lives in LA over the years, but in doing so has caused extensive property damage costing the city millions of dollars. The general public has had enough of Hancock, and wants him to either stop or move to another city.

The effects must get a good mention, but in two entirely different ways. All of the effects are produced magnificently, but some are completely wasted and over too quick before the blink of an eye. Our ex hero throws a whale from a beach, but it hits a sailing ship out at sea. It couldn’t have been on screen for more than a second. If you’re spending that much money, please let us take it in. The same could be said for the train that fell over. Let us see it, please.

The dull parts of the movie are really dull and there appears to be too many of them. They’re like lulls before the storm. Long lulls. You can’t wait for the storm, but the excitement level has fallen too far when they do ultimately arrive.

Also, I wasn’t sure if I was watching a comedy or a tragedy. It flowed from one to the other with no direct route. Perhaps there were too many ideas and the cutting table (yes I know a computer does it these days) trimmed either too far or in the wrong places. Were they trying to fit too much in?

The ending was very cheesy and unnecessary. It was embarrassing.

So why didn’t Charlize Theron get a real show or mention in the trialers? Was she too good or did the filmmakers want to hide her source code?

To go or not to go and see it, that is the question?

I’ve not been a Will Smith fan recently. His last few movies have all been about him as the film’s star and the script/movie doesn’t really matter. I Am Legend was one of the worst movies I’ve seen in recent years with plot holes, poor script and was just plain uninteresting. I couldn’t wait for it to end despite the contrived action that was almost embarrassing. It ticked every box in the Hollywood list of what has to happen in a Hollywood movie, including the very poor ending, obvious to all and his cat. I wondered how this movie ever came to pass, but then the guy is a major star and it appears that even if the movie sucks, people will go and see it for the star. Wild Wild West and Hitch didn’t get there for me, although Men in Black (especially Men In Black 2) always restores my trust when I watch it each year.

I didn’t see The Pursuit of Happyness as the trailer told me that it was so much a star man film again that I missed the opportunity of a lifetime, so I’m told. It didn’t do it for me.

Do I give him a chance to redeem himself? Based upon the trailer it looks like another movie staring him and nothing else matters. That’s rather sad because he was a great actor and has appeared in many good films.

Now here’s the dilemma. Charlize Theron is also staring in the film. She only appears in good quality movies and she often chooses subjects that appear a strange choice before you see the movie and then afterwards you can’t help but think that she always manages to get us all into something a little different, with Monster being the recent stand out, but I enjoyed Aeon Flux and the Italian Job (which could never be quite as good as the original). So the movie must have something going for it.

The on screen effects look good (for big screens, not 5 inch portables) and if there are more of them than Will Smith showing us how great he is then there’s chance I’ll be satisfied. Any movie that incorporates a T.Rex’s 20th Century Boy music groove deserves a chance.