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That bullwhip Indiana Jones cracks looks like a limp noodle in the face of the summer's higher-tech hulks. Yet the smart money says that Harrison Ford's aging Indy will be king of the box office. I'm not so sure. Christian Bale's Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's Joker could give the old boy a run for it. Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man is killer good. And don't mess with Will Smith's Hancock, Pixar's animated Wall-E or the posters on my movie blog who so want to believe in the X-Files film follow-up. Between now and Labor Day, Hollywood will spend a billion in marketing dollars to convince us that summer '08 is more than tired-ass sequels and comic-book retreads. Here are a few of the movies that maybe, just maybe, can bust out of the pack.
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| Iron Man |
| Opening May 2nd |
There's no rust on this baby. Iron Man kicks off summer on a blazing high note and practically dares the competition to measure up. It's been years since a movie superhero was this fierce and this funny. All praise to acting dynamo Robert Downey Jr., who brings so much creative juice to the party that Iron Man achieves instant liftoff. Even if you know diddly about the character Marvel built in 1963, Downey and director Jon Favreau — just the right swinger for the job — will get you up to speed pronto.
Hard to believe that Iron Man and his alter ego, Tony Stark, have never been exploited as movie subjects before. Could it be that Stark, the boozing, lecherous, right-wing manufacturer of WMDs, scared off stars less willing to take a risk than Downey? Screw 'em. You can feel the exhilaration in the telling and updating of this origin story, with a script polish by no less than Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, the writers behind the brilliant Children of Men. Iron Man is a class act all the way. What kind of popcorn flick gets the great, dangerously charming Jeff Bridges to shave his head to play Obadiah Stane, the chief villain? Or Terrence Howard to add mystery to Rhodey, Tony's military adviser? Or Oscar princess Gwyneth Paltrow to show the smarts and sexiness of Pepper Potts, Tony's leggy assistant? Don't question, just lap it up.
As Tony gets blown up by his own weapons in Afghanistan — nothing like a near-death experience to trigger a switch to peace politics — he uses the three months of lockup by insurgents to build an iron suit that powers his shrapnel-shattered heart and helps him escape back to his L.A. workshop. There he adds some hot-red color to build an even cooler suit and begin his life as a superhero. "Spectacular" is the word, even when the plot gears grind from the strain. What matters is the raw vitality. Iron Man is the shit because Favreau (Made, Elf) is too funky to settle for slick. And Downey does something even more resonant for this flying hunk of metal: He gives Iron Man a soul.
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| Speed Racer |
| Opening May 9th |
A family film from Andy and Larry Wachowski — what's up with that? In their first go at directing since the demon-dark Matrix trilogy, the brothers have decided to put the animated 1960s Japanese TV series on the big screen as a live-action feature with nothing to disturb the kids or Grandma. That in itself is disturbing. But the look of the high-def images — with foreground and background in equal focus — is definitely cool. As Speed, Emile Hirsch had to shoot the whole movie against a blank greenscreen. Talk about into the wild.
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| The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian |
| Opening May 16th |
While the Wachowskis go wussy, Disney ups the ante on action in the second film from C.S. Lewis' children's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. Expect something faster and looser as hunk Brit newcomer Ben Barnes dashes around Narnia as Prince Caspian, trying to win back his rightful throne with help from the four Pevensie kids. Look for the sequel to at least match the $290 million take of 2005's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
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| Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull |
| Opening May 22nd |
Nobody knows nothing about what director Steven Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas have in store in the fourth chapter of their Indy series. This movie has a tighter lid on it than the ballot that shows who came in second at this year's Academy Awards. But the bitching is pretty much nonstop: Harrison Ford is too old — he's 66 — to cut it as an action hero. Shia LaBeouf, 21, has been cast with him for youth-appeal insurance. Setting the movie in 1957 with a plot involving a Soviet agent (Cate Blanchett) and possible space aliens makes it seem dated. Worse, the jazzy computer effects are kept to a minimum. And maybe you've noticed that the most recent Indy flick, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was nearly 20 years ago. Who the hell still cares? Actually, you won't be able not to care. Too much cash has been spent to get your attention. For starters, Indy 4 has the money spot on the summer calendar, the Thursday before the Memorial Day weekend — no other movie will dare compete with it. Brands including M&M's, Dr Pepper, Expedia, Burger King and Kraft Lunchables have launched big-budget tie-ins. And that's not counting the film's own marketing budget, said to be nudging $100 million. An online poll of more than 5,000 users of Fandango.com voted Indy 4 the summer's "most anticipated" movie. So how can it miss? Forget the hype. The only way this ship doesn't sail is if the old team can't match what it started so magnificently in 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Tall order. Demanding audience. Pressure on.
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| Sex and the City |
| Opening May 30th |
Macho men fear this movie as the one summer chick flick they will be dragged to no matter how hard they protest. Relax. It's the ladies and the metrosexuals who will make or break the film version of the Candace Bushnell book that became Darren Star's Emmy-winning HBO series that became (from 1998 to 2004) must viewing for everyone who ever cared about shoes, hair, nails and men — in that order. The trailer for Sex and the City seems to hard-sell the comedy, when the show always took its time, letting the humor and even the drama subtly seep in. Only a fool would question Sarah Jessica Parker's fashion-superhero status as Carrie Bradshaw, author of the weekly column "Sex and the City" for the fictitious New York Star. Parker is back, along with Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall as her cohorts in negotiating the shifting definitions of womanhood in a big, bad city. Guys, maybe you should stop resisting the movie. You just might learn something.
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| The Foot Fist Way |
| Opening May 30th |
What do you say about a two-cent movie, in the can for three years, that has now escaped to win us over to Danny McBride as a nut job who sets up shop in a mall to educate customers in the martial art of tae kwon do (that's Korean for the film's title)? I say see it and get the bends from laughing. The sensei of the film industry have been watching it on the private circuit. Now it's your turn.
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| The Mother of Tears |
| Opening June 6th |
Horror—masterpiece alert! You do not want to miss the sight of Asia Argento being directed by her daddy, Dario Argento, in the completion of Dario's infamous Three Mothers trilogy, famously started with Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). Asia plays an art student menaced by a witch mother (Moran Atias). Some have complained of Tears' copious gore and nudity. Yeah, like that's a problem.
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| You Don't Mess With the Zohan |
| Opening June 6th |
Adam Sandler as an Israeli commando who moves to Manhattan to become a hairstylist? It sounds wrong. And yet Sandler wrote the script with SNL's Robert Smigel and comedy king Judd Apatow. How do you have fun with the terrorists on Zohan's tail? And yet there's Borat.
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| The Incredible Hulk |
| Opening June 13th |
Hey, didn't Oscar-winning director Ang Lee make a 2003 movie of this Marvel comic-book series about a scientist dude, Bruce Banner, whose repressed rage plus exposure to gamma rays turned him into a decidedly unjolly green giant? Yes, Lee did just that, but the audience was allergic. Now Marvel has decided to make its own movies — Iron Man is first up at bat — and the Hulk gets his second chance. It helps that Edward Norton, a formidable actor allergic to doing trash quickie remakes, is stepping up to enter the Hulk's skin and psyche. Director Louis Leterrier (The Transporter) goes along with the theory that the new Hulk hews closer to the comic books, and to the TV series with Lou Ferrigno that ran on CBS from 1978 to 1982. Reportedly, stress wasn't confined to the green guy but spread to the filmmakers and the Marvel camp, who arranged for Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man to drop in for a cameo. Norton insists that give-and-take is part of any creative process. He doesn't share details but notes that "only in Hollywood is pushing for something to be good considered arrogance."
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| The Happening |
| Opening June 13th |
After his last two flops, The Village and Lady in the Water (a book, The Man Who Heard Voices, was written about the troubles on that one), it's hard not to have a sinking feeling about M. Night Shyamalan's latest tale of the paranormal. It stars Mark Wahlberg as a science teacher having an environmental nightmare. But Shyamalan is such a true talent, as he proved in The Sixth Sense, Signs and Unbreakable, that I'd enjoy eating my words.
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| The Love Guru |
| Opening June 20th |
Can you be a superhero without lifting a hand in violence? Mike Myers thinks so — that's why he created Pitka the love guru. Pitka, an American raised by gurus in an ashram in India, heads back home to make it in the self-help game. His first job is to try and reconcile a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey star (Romany Malco) and the wife (Meagan Good) who dumped him for his archenemy on the Los Angeles Kings (Justin Timberlake). Except for voicing the ogre in the Shrek trilogy, Myers hasn't been onscreen since his last Austin Powers film six years ago. Pitka, inspired by Myers' friendship with the late George Harrison, brought him back. Based only on the trailer, prominent Hindu chaplain Rajan Zed fears that the comedy may be "lampooning Hinduism." Myers claims he only wants to shake his sillies out. You be the judge.
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| Get Smart |
| Opening June 20th |
When I faced down Steve Carell recently and asked him how his superagent Maxwell Smart would be different from the one originated by Don Adams on the 1960s TV series Get Smart, he giggled helplessly. Good sign. Juno has her hamburger phone, Smart uses his shoe to hear voicemail. With Anne Hathaway standing in for Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, Get Smart isn't trying to replicate the slapstick mania Mel Brooks and Buck Henry created for the tube. It aims to spoof spy movies for the Bourne generation. I'm laughing already.
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| Wanted |
| Opening June 27th |
Action is a male province in summer movies, which leaves Angelina Jolie to represent for the sisters. They're in good hands. The erstwhile Lara Croft, on escapist sabbatical after all the heavy dramatic lifting in A Mighty Heart, plays Fox (great name). In this adaptation of Mark Millar's graphic novels, Jolie trains unassuming Atonement star James McAvoy in the assassin business. Russian director Timur Bekmambetov said he wanted to keep the movie down and dirty, like the nasty business conjured up by Millar. It sounds so not Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which I think is all to the good.
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| WALL-E |
| Opening June 27th |
There is always one giant animated hit every summer. Think Ratatouille last year, or anything Pixar. So place your bets on WALL-E — it stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, and is set in 2700, when the planet is unlivable and humans survive in spaceships. That's right, Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton and the Pixar gang have conjured up a super- robot who collects trash, talks only in beeps and still manages to fall in love and provide a message for mankind. I'm so there.
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| Hancock |
| Opening July 2nd |
If Indy owns the Memorial Day weekend, Hancock — a fallen superhero in the person of ever-rising supernova Will Smith — lays claim to the July 4th box-office treasure trove. In this kind of movie, be it I Am Legend, Bad Boys or Men in Black, Smith is, to drop another title, Mr. Independence Day. The plot sounds like a darkly comic spin on The Incredibles, as Smith must hire a PR whiz (Jason Bateman) to restore his image in the action-hero business. It doesn't help matters that the high-flying, bulletproof Hancock is an alcoholic with a thing for the PR guy's wife (Charlize Theron, of all Oscar winners). From the looks of it, Hancock doesn't follow the usual crowd-pleasing patterns, and having wild man Peter Berg in the director's chair only whets the appetite.
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| The Wackness |
| Opening July 3rd |
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You haven't lived until you've seen Sir Ben Kingsley light up a bong in Jonathan Levine's potently witty look at Giuliani Manhattan circa 1994. Sir Ben plays a shrink who treats a teen pot dealer (Josh Peck) in exchange for weed. Peck is terrific, as is Olivia Thirlby as the shrink's sexy stepdaughter. But it's the loosey—goosey Sir Ben, having a ball, who puts the wack in The Wackness.
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| Hellboy II |
| Opening July 11th |
Maybe you're one of those who didn't cotton to the first Hellboy four years ago. I did. The title character, as invented by Mike Mignola and vividly played by Ron Perlman, is an amazing invention: a brooding, bright-red anti-hero who files down his horns to please his pyro girlfriend (Selma Blair). What I cotton to even more is the decision of Mexican director Guillermo del Toro to go back to Hellboy when the justified acclaim he won for 2006's Pan's Labyrinth had Hollywood begging him to go with the suits for high prices. The gifted del Toro is a maverick pied piper. I'd follow him anywhere.
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| Religulous |
| Opening July 11th |
What would a movie season be without a comic provocateur to shake things up? Enter Bill Maher, the focus of this merrily malicious Larry Charles documentary on that most volatile topic: faith. The title is a blend of religion and ridiculous, just so you know where you're heading. Maher travels the globe Borat—style, digging out the comedy in matters believers take most seriously. Expect explosive reactions.
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| Meet Dave |
| Opening July 11th |
Eddie Murphy plays an alien starship who comes to our planet disguised as a human being whose body can still accommodate miniature aliens in high style. And wait, Dave falls for Earth girl Elizabeth Banks. Stop me when any of this sounds remotely intriguing. Meet Dave — once called Starship Dave — is directed by Brian Robbins, who guided Murphy through his multiple roles in the sexist, racist Norbit, everyone's nominee for the worst movie of 2007. Bad vibe? Ya think?
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| The Dark Knight |
| Opening July 18th |
At the top of my summer wanna-see list sits Christopher Nolan's follow-up to his 2005 Batman Begins. Nolan's stripped-down style brings a dark vigor to the DC Comics franchise. Nolan and the superb Christian Bale as the Dark Knight connect on levels that dig way below the surface. The story pits Batman, a.k.a. Bruce Wayne, against two adversaries, the Joker (the late Heath Ledger) and district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who comes between Batman and assistant DA Rachel Dawes, with live-wire Maggie Gyllenhaal in for Katie Holmes. The sequel boasts a redesigned Batsuit, the debut of the Batpod and four action scenes filmed for Imax, notably the intro of the Joker. There is no doubt that the performance of Ledger in that role exerts a powerful pull. With Ledger in place, The Dark Knight has the potential to raise the series to a whole new level.
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| The X-Files: I Want to Believe |
| Opening July 25th |
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Sheesh, we all want to believe. But it's been six years since The X-Files ended its TV run, and the first movie version was a decade ago. What fresh paranormal hell is being cooked up by FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson)? As for plot leaks that claim the sequel is a relationship movie, trust no one, including creator Chris Carter. The truth is out there, but we'll just have to wait. And what true X-phile won't be there to find out?
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| Pineapple Express |
| Opening August 8th |
Move over, Harold and Kumar, not to mention Cheech and Chong: Stoners Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) and Saul Silver (James Franco) are after a new strain of weed called Pineapple Express, and they might get killed for it. Produced by Judd Apatow (what comedy isn't these days?), from a script by Rogen and his Superbad partner, Evan Goldberg, this blend of mirth and menace has been generating great buzz in test screenings, especially for Spider-Man's stylish Franco, who looks like four miles of torn-up road and gives the comedy performance of his career. That the director is David Gordon Green, he of thoughtful indie dramas such as George Washington, Undertow and Snow Angels, only adds to the reefer madness.
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| Tropic Thunder |
| Opening August 15th |
Ben Stiller bites the toxic Hollywood hand that feeds him in a sidesplitting spoof of the movie business. Stiller — talk about a heroic bout of multitasking — directs and stars in a screenplay he wrote with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen (not Joel's brother). The plot brings together three spoiled, massively overpaid actors making a dead—serious Vietnam movie for which they are absurdly unsuited. Stiller's Tug Speedman desperately wants respect as an actor. Ditto Jack Black as Jeff "Fats" Portnoy, a junkie best known for multiple comedy roles in which he farts repeatedly. Then there's Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus, a white Aussie multi—Oscar winner who thinks he's extending his range by having his skin surgically pigmented to play an African—American officer. Downey is flat—out hilarious, and those who protest the idea of the character are totally missing the comic point. The big surprise is an unbilled cameo by an uproarious Tom Cruise, in a fat suit and a bald cap, playing a studio boss with a mouth that's almost as foul as the real thing. To hear him curse his assistant (Bill Hader) as a "nutless monkey" before breaking into a happy dance is a thing of gross beauty. So's the movie. Stiller does summer comedy a huge favor by crafting just the right kind of laugh riot, the smart, bruising kind in which the laughs, aptly, stick in the throat.
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| Star Wars: The Clone Wars |
| Opening August 15th |
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No doubt I'll catch holy hell from the George Lucas acolytes who will worship before this animated Star Wars spinoff, as a prelude to a series on the Cartoon Network. The story rolls out between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Excuse me. Didn't those two movies suck? Didn't the whole of the second Stars Wars trilogy?
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| Hamlet 2 |
| Opening August 22nd |
If you want to end summer by going off the wall, latch onto Steve Coogan. The Brit comic with solid acting skills (check him out in 24 Hour Party People) plays the director of the movie—within—the—movie in Tropic Thunder. But for a maximum dose of bizarro Steve, Hamlet 2 is your final destination. Coogan plays Dana Marschz, a star who never was, perhaps because his last name is unpronounceable. Dana is stuck teaching drama to Arizona high school gangbangers until he decides his ticket out is to put on his own musical version of Hamlet, with songs like "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus." Even when director Andrew Fleming and writer Pam Brady flirt with being mainstream—ingratiating, Coogan holds Hamlet 2 to its ballsy center. He's mad nuts, and my hero.
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| Crossing Over |
| Opening August 22nd |
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Harrison Ford loses the Indy fedora to play a border cop in a hardcore drama about illegal immigration into Los Angeles. Written and directed by Wayne Kramer (The Cooler), the film is loaded with heavy hitters, such as Sean Penn, Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd, trying to provide audiences with an alternative to the popcorn escapism that defines summer at the multiplex. Godspeed.
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| Babylon A.D. |
| Opening August 29th |
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Vin Diesel brings bulk and God knows what to this futuristic tale about a mercenary who . . . I can't go on.
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| Vicky Christina Barcelona |
| Opening August 29th |
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It's Woody Allen time, meaning we'll be wondering if the lately—hit—and—miss auteur pulls this one off. I'm betting he does, since this rom—com, set in Barcelona, stars Javier Bardem as a painter whose ex—wife (Penelope Cruz) gets between the good thing he has going with Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson). Sounds like the Woodman has spiced up his life.
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Iron Man
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull