Sara Vilkomerson’s Guide To This Week’s Movies: Everybody Loves Will

Just as we feared, audiences went just as nuts for Pixar’s Wall-E as critics did. This animated movie about the future—which seems to be inhabited by cute-talking little machines (thank you very much, Mr. Roboto)—took the top spot with $62.5 million in earnings. But there was even more for Hollywood box office watchers to shout about: Wanted did waaaay better than predicted, taking in over $51 million, thanks in no small part to the irresistibility of Angelina Jolie fondling firearms.

BUT NOW IT'S the big Fourth of July holiday weekend, traditionally a time of barbecues and swimming and, when the heat has everyone red and pooped, decamping for a couple of escapist hours in air-conditioned theaters. And who’s been better for providing some Independence Day entertainment than Will Smith, a.k.a the most likable actor around? This holiday he stars in Hancock, which aims to toss a knowing wink to all the comic-book superheroes that have ruled the box office the past few years. Hancock, as we meet him in the beginning of the film, is a down-and-out and surly superhero. He drinks, he’s unkempt and when he comes to the aid of the residents of Los Angeles, he tends to inflict more damage than help. Cute idea, right? And it is—the first half of the movie skips merrily along, carried on Mr. Smith’s practically superheroic charisma and the awesomeness of Jason Bateman (can that man ever deliver a bad line?), who plays a PR man bent on changing Hancock’s tarnished image. Things take a weird turn during the second half of this fast 90-minute flick: Director Peter Berg can’t seem to settle into just what this movie is finally supposed to be. A comedy? An action film? A love story? If you stop and think too closely about the plot (and especially co-star Charlize Theron’s role in it), things begin to fall apart. So don’t!

Hancock opens today at AMC Loews Kips Bay, 34th Street, and Battery Park City, as well as Regal Union Square.

SPEAKING OF SUPERHEROES … what to make of Hellboy II: The Golden Army? Directed by Guillermo del Toro (director and co-writer of the first film, and a huge fan of the comics), the movie is as visually imaginative as you would expect from the brain that brought you Pan’s Labyrinth. Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is a funny kind of protagonist: cantankerous, gruff, attention-seeking and, let’s not forget, a giant red demon who might destroy the world one day. But Mr. Del Toro’s film is surprisingly gentle. (With the exception of some flesh-eating, tooth-seeking monsters that we really don’t ever want to see again. Ever.) The film leans more toward fantasy than action, more Neverending Story than Batman Begins. Mr. Del Toro’s next project is the heavily panted over Hobbit series … but you have to wait till 2011 to see it.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens Friday, July 11, at Regal E-Walk, Battery Park and Union Square.

svilkomerson@observer.com