10 Movies That Are Totally Different By The End
4. Hancock
How It Starts
Hancock starts off as a damn fun time - an incredibly silly and puerile superhero comedy in which an alcoholic superhero, John Hancock (Will Smith), causes all manner of destruction across LA, before PR specialist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) steps in to try and help rehabilitate his image.
Though that basic setup sounds like the recipe for an entertainingly broad comedy, the script - co-written by Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan - had something else in mind.
How It Ends
At the start of the third act, we learn that Ray's wife Mary (Charlize Theron) is also a superhero, and more to the point, she and Hancock were previously married, until Hancock lost his memory in an accident 80 years earlier and she left him.
Moreover, the closer together Hancock and Mary are, the more mortal they become, and in order to maintain their powers they must again split up.
And so, Hancock's finale becomes a far more dour and earnest story than the hour of silly fun times that preceded it, offering up a mawkish pondering on the nature of god-like entities and a thoroughly sappy ending in which Hancock takes leave so Mary and Ray can reconcile.
All Hancock needed to be was a mildly amusing superhero parody, yet by straining for genuine profundity and pathos in the final reel, it became totally unstuck.