Rating: 3 Pulses

Rated PG-13

Since 1996, the celebrating of America’s Independence Day can be succinctly summed up by cookouts, small explosives and Will Smith. With Hancock, the new Smith vehicle about a super antihero who just needs to be loved, 2008 proves no different.

In Hancock, Smith plays the title role: the antithesis of the slew of comic book superheroes whose pages have been pilfered for Hollywood’s next summer blockbuster. Though similar characters can often be found in today’s more adult comics, Hancock’s foul-mouthed whiskey breath is a somewhat refreshing departure from other flamboyantly costumed do-gooders.

Smith plays Hancock with his usual charisma. Despite being virtually invincible, Hancock draws his share of bullies, taunting them to call him “a asshole” one more time. The resulting punishments are delivered with a passive glee despite the insult’s obvious effect on his fragile ego.

Once “Arrested Development’s” Jason Bateman enters the picture, however, Smith’s renegade super man turns into a misunderstood teenager prone to excessively expensive temper tantrums and minutes upon minutes of lemon-faced lip pursing that hardly hides his loneliness. The teenage boy sitting next to me ate it up.

Bateman plays Ray Embrey, an empathetic public relations manager whose heart seems too big for his chosen profession. Ray’s wife is played transparently by Charlize Theron. When the Embreys ask Hancock over for meatballs, her disapproving stare not-so-subtly hints at a deeper connection with Hancock. Prior, Ray is saved from certain death by train and not only sticks up for the scorned savior but also offers to help him clean up his act and his image.

This is to be accomplished by Hancock volunteering himself to go to prison. Naturally, it is during Hancock’s stay at Camp Prison that the film delivers, for better or worse, the final punch line to a long string of “I’m going to stick your/his/my _____ into your/his/my ass” jokes.

I was surprised by the brevity of the action scenes in this movie, one that seems to breeze along with short bursts of Hancock performing casually amazing feats rather than following the formulaic fight-scene-every-15-minutes rule, but the film only falters when it focuses on the pouty man-child’s self-thrown pity party.

Ultimately though, the film is enjoyably light, exactly what a July 4 weekend movie should be, Will Smith and all.