'Hancock' (PG-13)(out of four)

Do we really need another superhero movie? Probably not. But "Hancock" isn't your typical stereotypical character with super human strength and special powers -- and that's what makes it so utterly appealing. Inventive, ingenious and altogether entertaining, "Hancock" is a definite standout in the summer movie pack.

Will Smith plays a whiskey-addicted, disheveled Los Angeles street dude who just happens to have such power that when he leaps from the blacktopped road, he leaves a crater behind. He can whip a whale around his head and into the sea, and can repel bullets with his bare chest.

Yet, when we first meet John Hancock, he's a total wreck -- drunk and badly in need of a shave. He's sleeping on a park bench until a kid wakes him up to tell him that there are some folks in peril and in need of being saved. The 8-year-old obviously knows that Hancock isn't a homeless guy on a park bench, but LA's Superman.

Hancock must wake from his drunken daze and save the day. As the kid walks away, he utters Hancock's least favorite phrase -- he calls him an a------, which continues as a running joke throughout the movie. Call Hancock that one more time and all heck will break loose. It's probably the most comic book of anything in this movie, which borrows little from its predecessors with the same premise.

Hancock is actually known in the City of Angels as an ill-fitted hero. He swoops in, saves the day and is on his low-key way. The trouble is, he leaves collateral damage wherever he goes to the chagrin of the entire city and its mayor, who ends up calling for Hancock's arrest.

But there's no stopping a superhero. Hancock arrives to save a man from getting pummeled by a train barreling down the tracks. He pushes the car upward and it lands atop another car. Despite his heroic efforts, the crowd boos him, calls him a you know what and questions his ability to save a life in his usual reckless manner.

The man he's saved is a public relations executive, played by Jason Bateman (whose movie career is all of a sudden on the up slide lately since television's "Arrested Development"). Now that Hancock has rescued Ray, the hapless businessman is going to help him get his street cred put in the proper perspective. He decides to mount a public relations campaign to adjust Hancock's attitude and rally the public around to adore him.

Through various twists and turns, we find out how it is that Hancock has come to possess his kinetic powers. He tells Ray: "It's not like you meet someone and say 'I don't like to travel, I'm allergic to cats and I'm immortal.' "

Charlize Theron adds a lift to the movie in a surprising turn of events, which in its first hour is repetitive with Hancock sulking about and everyone trying to figure out the source of the loner's depression.

Director Peter Berg tries to inject a dose of documentary style into the film by using a hand-held camera at odd moments, focusing in way too close on faces, and providing artsy angles. Brushing aside the annoyance of the ragged scenes of his actors, to his credit Berg makes the movie seem more real than fantasy with his technique. We genuinely buy into the characters rather than them appearing too cartoonish.

Smith will hit box-office gold as he has done with a number of films to open Fourth of July weekend since he scored with "Independence Day" in 1996. Fans will flock to the theater for "Hancock," but non-fans will find something to cheer about, too. Underneath Hancock's rough and tumble exterior, there's a good guy who just wants to make the world a better place to live.

If you haven't had enough of "Hancock," its great special effects, originality and eye-popping action sequences, don't worry, the final minutes of the movie seem to yell out "sequel." My prediction? Fourth of July weekend 2010.