It's that time of the year again. Here's what's opening in theaters this summer. As discussed in a prior thread, the sequels and remakes are even heavier than usual, and those big movies that aren't sequels or remakes are in large part adaptations of popular novels. Some of them will be good. A few might even be great, but I have to think there will be something original and currently inconspicuous that will turn out to be a hit amongst moviegoers thirsting for fresh material. The summer movie season begins on April 29th this year, but let's start with tomorrow.


April 15 - The Amityville Horror

Few realize it, but there were actually *eight* movies in the Amityville Horror series that began with the 1979 film. Some were made-for-TV, some were direct-to-video, and others had invisible theatrical releases, but there were *eight*. I've seen the first three and was singularly unimpressed: the word on the later entries is that they're even worse.

This remake has more promise than any of the sequels did, but my problem is that the story is inherently uninteresting. There's no plot, really -- some scary things happen for unknown reasons, and that pretty much covers it. There's no villain, no surprises, nothing truly *active* about where the story goes and what the characters do. English teachers taught you how sentences written in the passive voice are weak, right? The Amityville Horror is a whole story written in the passive voice.

Of course, this is more a review of the original than an analysis of the remake, which might be faithful and then again might have a lot of alterations to solve this very problem. The trouble is, after a spring containing The Boogeyman, Ring Two, White Noise, Alone In the Dark, Constantine, Cursed, Hide and Seek, and The Jacket, does anybody care about another dud in the line-up?

April 22 - Kung Fu Hustle

Stephen Chow, whose previous hit was "Shaolin Soccer," returns in what Roger Ebert described as a composite of the work of Jackie Chan, Buster Keaton, Quentin Tarantino, and Bugs Bunny. Sounds like a cult classic to me.

April 22 - The Interpreter

At his best, Sydney Pollack is a fabulous director, and though he hasn't had a hit in a while, this movie looks like a great entry in my favorite genre. Nicole Kidman (on a downswing in popularity due to overexposure but still a favorite of mine) stars as an interpreter who works in the U.N. building who catches wind of a conspiracy. I say no more, and beware of trailers that give away too much. The obligatory footnote about this movie is that it is the first ever to have been granted permission to film inside the United Nations building. Reportedly one of the conditions was that some of its members would get to play themselves in it. Even if the film turns out to be weaker than I hope, it should at least be good to look at.

April 22 - The Sandlot 2

James Earl Jones may be the only reason to notice this at all.

April 29 - XXX: State of the Union

I did NOT like "XXX." Vin Diesel turned in one of the worst performances in a mainstream film I've ever seen, and beyond that it was all just a chaotic mess of noise and motion. Boring, boring, boring.

There are two reasons to expect more from the sequel. One, Vin Diesel isn't in it. Ice Cube takes his place, and while he's not one of my favorite actors either, he's a lot more worldly and real. Two, the director is Lee Tamahori, the man behind the best of the Brosnan Bond films, Die Another Day, which had several action scenes with some emotional weight behind them. XXX is similar territory, so he *should* be able to pull it off.

April 29 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The early word on the trailers is pretty poor. The only reason to hope for this at all is that Douglas Adams worked on the script before he died, so depending on how much the script may have been altered after the fact, there is at least a creative anchor in the production. The director is untried: odd that a studio would entrust beloved franchise material to someone without more credentials.

May 6 - House of Wax

The studio that brought you remakes of House On Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts, and Ghost Ship are now bringing you a remake of House of Wax. True to form, it looks to be flashy, gory, and kinetic while totally lacking the psychological power to drive it all home. The trailers make it look like a pretty routine slasher flick, which is not what the original was all about.

May 6 - Kingdom of Heaven

The religious controversy has already ignited around Ridley Scott's crusades epic. Much of the furor, though, seems to be media-driven: the New York Times practically set up the initial controversy all by itself. We'll see how it goes when people actually see the movie.

Currently, my primary concern is that the bad taste of Gladiator is still in my mouth, and I don't know why I'd trust this normally visionary director with another period epic.

May 13 - Monster-In-Law

Much has been made of Jane Fonda's return to the screen after a 15 year absence. Couldn't she have picked something better than this? Maybe it'll be good, I don't know, but nothing I've seen yet suggests it's anything but a pretty generic romantic-comedy-family-tension-drama. It's hard to do these well and harder to do them with any kind of freshness.

May 13 - Unleashed (previously Danny the Dog)

Forget Jet Li's recent U.S. efforts. This one is a mark along a totally different path. It's what looks to be brutal, uncomfortable, and merciless, but with a lot of potential for some real deep thinking about humanity and evil. Li plays a guy who spent his life being treated as a fight dog, trained to kill in gladiator-like fight clubs, and denied any right or privilege inherent in being human -- until something happens to allow that to change. White Fang, but with a person instead of a dog? Sounds unpleasant, but the possibilities for something with real insight into what makes us human are endless. Morgan Freeman co-stars, and that's always a plus.

May 13 - Kicking & Screaming

Will Ferrell, in yet another cookie-cutter comedy. Slow down, boy.

May 13 - Mindhunters

Renny Harlin, one of my least favorite mainstream directors, made this thriller about FBI trainees who discover a killer in their midst. It's been playing in Europe for almost a year now. Word of mouth is largely ambivalent. It's probably an improvement on Deep Blue Sea.

May 19 - Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

I liked episodes one and two, but only taken as an island unto themselves, not as peers of the original trilogy, perish the thought. The potential is greatest with this one. Things finally come together, and it *should* have more emotional power than in I and II. Still, if Hayden Christiansen can act his way out of a paper bag, it's not under George Lucas's ponderous direction, and that's a problem.

May 27 - The Longest Yard

Do we need a remake of this?

May 27 - Madagascar

And do we need this? In the wake of so many good 3D animated films with heart to them, it's a let-down to see one like this that seems like it's so desperate to get a laugh or two that it tries too hard. It's a bit like seeing "The Emperor's New Groove" come out of the studio that made "The Lion King" a few years earlier.

June 3 - Cinderella Man

What's this not doing in Oscar season? Cross A Beautiful Mind with Seabiscuit, and this is probably what you get.

June 3 - The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

The Ya-Ya Sisterhood for teens? Perhaps an unfair comparison. This one looks better, and its literary heritage shows more promise.

June 10 - Mr. and Mrs. Smith

It's easy to see how this movie got made. It must have sounded great in the pitch: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play assassins married to each other -- but neither one knows the other is an assassin, and eventually comes a day when each gets an assignment to kill the other.

Sounds great as a pitch, doesn't it? But can the idea sustain a full-length movie and come off as anything more than the gimmick?

June 10 - The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl In 3-D

Robert Rodriguez's second for the year. Now he's not just plugging digital, he's plugging 3D. Eh.

June 10 - The Honeymooners

NO NO NO NO WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG GAH GAH GAH GAH

June 17 - The Perfect Man

Hilary Duff and Heather Locklear star in what promises to be one of those nice, cute, pleasant, harmless, cookie-cutter romantic comedy for the teens and tweens. The formula is pretty simple: single mom has single daughter, and they probably learn to understand and respect each other while the daughter sorts out the mom's love life via some pretty insane stunts that would never work in the real world. Movies like these depend solely on whether the script leaves likeable characters alone to be likeable or whether it grinds them kicking and screaming through obligatory plot points. Earlier this year, "Hitch" was a great case for study on this very point: the first half of the movie left the characters alone, and the second forced them through an overplotted series of story hurdles. Guess which half was more satisfying?

June 17 - Batman Begins

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. "*Another* Batman movie?" is what I keep hearing, as if this one is next in the progression Joel Schumacher inflicted upon us with Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. No, this is a back-to-the-basics psychological thriller. If it's any good, it's the one Tim Burton tried to make unsuccessfully with his 1989 film.

The director is Christopher Nolan, who made a trio of low budget thrillers (Following, Memento, and Insomnia) that are so clever, so involving, and so tightly wound that they're real diamonds. With Nolan at the helm of a Batman movie, the promise is for the first truly great Batman movie ever.

The problem is that Warner Bros. has a history of interfering with the creative process when it comes to adaptations of their treasured comic book assets. Batman & Robin burned them so bad that they may have learned that lesson, but maybe not. It all boils down to whether they give Chris Nolan the freedom to do what he wants to do.

I don't know if Batman Begins will be a great film or not, but I'd say it has a shockingly good chance of it.

June 24 - Bewitched

Remaking Bewitched? Bad. Casting Nicole Kidman in the lead? Good. Casting Will Ferrell as Darrin? Bad. Casting Shirley MacLaine as Endora? Good. Making the premise of the movie not a straight adaptation of the show but a movie about a down-and-out actor who conceives of remaking Bewitched to revive his career, only to find out that the actress hired to play Samantha is a witch in real life? Weird. I mean...weird.

June 24 - Herbie: Fully Loaded

As silly an idea as this sounds, Lindsay Lohan is 2 for 2 on Disney remakes. Both "The Parent Trap" and "Freaky Friday," while clearly inferior to their originals, weren't bad at all. If anything, this film *should* have an edge by being a sequel, rather than a remake, and a sequel to something already established as a series.

But...I don't know. Part of Herbie's charm was his relative lack of ability to communicate. Looking at the car was rather like looking at Hal 9000: you don't *see* any visual communication, but darned if you can't feel the mind at work underneath the mechanical facade. But "Herbie: Fully Loaded" gives Herbie *eyelids*, with which he can make facial expressions: anger, sadness, deviousness, and so forth. Is subtlety completely lost on us, now, as a culture?

June 24 - Land of the Dead

George Romero apparently gets to make another entry in his "Night of the Living Dead" series only about every 15 years, while imitations are greenlighted every other week. Well here's episode four in a series begun in 1968. Time will tell if Romero's still got it, or if the age of zombies has progressed beyond his vision.

Hey, did I say *pro*gressed?

June 29 - War of the Worlds

I've heard a lot of downing on this one, but come on. Steven Spielberg. The guy hasn't made a bad movie since 1979's 1941. Even if you count The Lost World and/or A.I., hey, they were at least interesting, and that's still only 2 out of around 30.

Some of the hesitation people have is that the book was adapted pretty loosely. The story is transplanted to the present day, for example, and a subplot involves familial relationships that Spielberg is so comfortable (and, frankly, good) at doing. Guys, you've *read* the book, right? It's a great book, but it would make a terrible movie, because there aren't really any characters in it, only witnesses to grand events. It's the writing that makes the book great -- the suggestion of the scope and cataclysm of the events it chronicles. Those things don't translate well to the screen.

The most faithful a good adaptation of the book can probably be was already made, in 1953. It's a good movie. You should see it. So who needs another one? This is how remakes *should* be. Don't give us the same thing we've already got. Give us something new. Exploit the idea in a different kind of way and see where it goes.

July 8 - The Fantastic Four

I hope the movie is not like the trailer, because the trailer looks absolutely horrid. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

July 8 - Dark Water

This remake of the Japanese film, from director Hideo Nakata (Ringu) just might be the thriller that the succession of eight or so we've had so far this year were trying to be. It's tough to say for sure, but the mid-summer opening date says a lot about the studio's confidence in the film.

July 8 - The Wedding Crashers

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan star in this buddy comedy of hijincks. Yawn.

July 8 - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Tim Burton is great at the visual side of movies like this, but he rarely (if ever?) achieves any kind of stable emotional tone. Big Fish was brilliant but curiously uninvolving (contrast with the much better Secondhand Lions to see what I mean). The Batman movies were so dark, it had considerably weaker impact than it would have if there had been some brightness to contrast with. Even one of his best films, Edward Scissorhands, suffered from an unwelcome sadism infused into the wrong side of a morality fable.

That's a lot of what I'm afraid of with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'm sure Tim Burton will be really good at humiliating the four snotty kids, but will he know what to do with Charlie?

July 20 - Kronk's New Groove

Occasionally, one of Disney's cash-in sequels to their animated films makes its way to theaters. Historically, this has not been an indicator of greater quality than the direct-to-video fare.

July 22 - The Island

And so we come to Michael Bay. Sigh. Michael Bay dukes it out with McG for the title of worst mainstream director of all time. The guy doesn't have a creative bone in his body. The awfulness of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor can be traced back directly to him. Can't follow an action scene? It's because he cuts so stupid much that it's impossible to be anything but bewildered and disoriented. He even cuts rapidly during the quieter scenes, fragmenting their impact and sabotaging the action scenes which would register better if the increased pace had something to contrast with.

"The Island" would therefore be the one I dread this coming summer if the preview didn't tempt me to give Bay another chance. I'm doomed to disappointment, but after all, Michael Bay did do "The Rock" which I rather liked, in spite of the editing. I dunno.

Anyway, the movie seems to be Matrix-like in the sense that it's about people trying to escape mass virtual reality, but it seems to explore very different territory than The Matrix did, which was more about style than the premise.

July 22 - The Bad News Bears

Do we need a remake of this? Probably not, but with Richard Linklater ("School of Rock") behind the helm, a surprise could definitely happen.

July 29 - The Brothers Grimm

Terry Gilliam's long-shelved project sounds great to me. Gilliam's work is variable; his failures tend to result from a lack of creative discipline, but when he's good, he's great. This is the kind of territory he's at home with. I say that, yet he's never really covered anything quite like this before. No, it's not a soppy bio-pic about the famous fairy tale authors. It's about a couple of con-artists that, by chance, happen upon a *real* fairy tale curse.

July 29 - Stealth

Top secret military program...artificial intelligence trying to start a nuclear war...mumble mumble. The director is Rob Cohen, who has inflicted even more bad things on us than Renny Harlin.

August 5 - 3001

Mike Judge's comedy about a stupid guy that gets cryogenically frozen and thawed out 1000 years later, where society is so dumbed down he's the smartest guy around. Did Judge get inspired by The Adventures of Smart Man?

Judge's comedy is too harsh and not funny enough for me. Ironic, considering the subject matter, but I've found his work to go for laughs by being stupid about stupidity instead of being smart about it.

August 5 - The Dukes of Hazzard

Speaking of stupidity, how can this possibly work? Jessica Simpson as Daisy and Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg is at least creative casting, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

August 5 - Doom

Karl Urban (Eomer) and The Rock, duking it out in space. Anybody else have the feeling this is going to be like watching somebody else play a video game?

August 12 - Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Speaking of stupidity.

August 12 - The Pink Panther

Interesting casting, getting Steve Martin to play the role of Inspector Clouseau, and I'm sure he can do it, despite the irreplaceability of Peter Sellers. But, well, you know how trailers for comedies sometimes give away the only funny gags? What does it mean when the trailer doesn't have any funny gags in it at all?

August 19 - Red-Eye

Wes Craven's thriller about a woman pulled into a plot of intrigue while on a red-eye flight. I'm always hopeful for movies like this, and even if Craven's track record is spotty (to say the least), I think he'd be good at handling the small genre diversion from horror to thriller. Still, when movies like this fail, they fail awfully, and late August is a time-honored dumping ground for bad thrillers.

August 19 - The Cave

Speaking of bad thrillers dumped into late August, here's another one that belongs with The Boogeyman and Alone In the Dark. It looks the same. I mean, really, the same. Studios could save a lot of money if they just pitched in and made one of these and opened it every couple of months under new titles.

August 19 - Romance & Cigarettes

August is also that place where intriguing little quirky things live. It's a "savage" musical, described as a cross between Pennies From Heaven and The Honeymooners. It is directed by none other than John Turturro, and get a load of the cast: James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, Mandy Moore, and Eddie Izzard. Is that not the strangest casting cataclysm, or what?