Escape route
Swords, Spidey, dodgeball, and some really heinous weather patterns – summertime swallows Hollywood.

By Cheryl Eddy

ANY POP CULTURE fiend worth his or her Entertainment Weekly subscription knows the summer movie season officially kicked off somewhere around the time Van Helsing and Troy thundered into theaters (another heavy hitter, Shrek 2, opens today). Still, while Troy may offer your only opportunity to see Brad Pitt flexing his pectorals in ancient Greece, there are plenty of hot, buttered summer movie delights on the horizon. Who wants to see some dark, character-driven drama when there are mad explosions and monsters and superheroes at the megaplex? What follows is a highly opinionated, highly speculative, by no means comprehensive list of the season's upcoming flicks. Opening dates and potentially lame-ass endings (hey – reshoots, man) are subject to change.

May 28 OK, just to get it out of the way: Saved! rocks. It's biting and hilarious, with some fine performances (even Mandy Moore, as an über-Christian bitch, is spot-on). And Soul Plane, with Captain Snoop Dogg ("I'm afraid of heights!") piloting the world's first all-black airline, looks promising. But next weekend is all about weather-goes-wild extravaganza The Day after Tomorrow. With direction by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day), expect widespread destruction of assorted national monuments, as well as a healthy supply of cheesy one-liners. But in this one alien invaders are replaced by blizzards, superstorms, a tidal wave that gobbles up the Statue of Liberty, and killer tornadoes that chew Los Angeles to bits. Even without Will Smith to save the day (the cast includes Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal), The Day after Tomorrow just might help Emmerich get past Godzilla and The Patriot, both so uninspiring I hesitate to mention them here, lest it taint your anticipation of C.G.-made killer tornadoes!

June 4 A new director – Alfonso Cuarón, late of Y tu mamá también – heads up the latest Hogwarts saga, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Gary Oldman – always welcome – joins the cast as the titular convict, and all the kids are back, puberty be damned. Let's look at this mathematically: the first Harry Potter movie was pretty good; the second was even better. So new director or not, things bode well for Azkaban. Of course, even if it looked like a one-way ticket to suckville, a bajillion pint-size and otherwise superfans would still trample each other to get tickets.

June 11 Takeshi Kitano unleashes The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi. Yeah! Also, erstwhile action hero Vin Diesel attempts a comeback with The Chronicles of Riddick, the sequel to Pitch Black that features Black's cowriter-director (David Twohy) as well as a supporting turn by Dame Judi Dench. Hmmm. Also, Frank Oz directs Nicole Kidman in a remake of The Stepford Wives. Zzzz. Also, live-action humans (including Jennifer Love Hewitt) mix with a C.G. feline in Garfield. Noooooo!

June 18 This weekend's main course: the Tom Hanks-Steven Spielberg project The Terminal, about a man without a country who makes his new home in a New York City airport. And for dessert, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, a goofy sports comedy starring Ben Stiller (as a rich, evil health club owner) and Vince Vaughn (as a sad-sack gym proprietor). The trailer for this one is funny as hell, and Starsky and Hutch was pretty amusing, so hey – you know what? Life's short. Have dessert first.

June 23 Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans layer on more makeup than Hellboy to go undercover in White Chicks. Any movie that clowns on Vanessa Carlton ("Ladies! This is our jam!") is well worth a mention.

June 30 Spider-Man 2. Duh.

July 7 It's the return of the other king, and word is, this ain't your storybook King Arthur: director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) is aiming for "realism," not "magick." I have high hopes for this one, serious-minded though it may be. Clive Owen (Arthur) and Keira Knightley (Guinevere) are both dreamy enough to command admission price, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer usually makes sure the proceedings are sufficiently bombastic. Still, if during a slow moment you have the urge to yell, "I fart in your general direction!" at the screen, I say go for it.

July 9 Will Ferrell is turning out to be a far more enjoyable Saturday Night Live refugee than Mike Myers ever was. And less smug too. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy takes on pre-P.C. 1970s newscasters with presumably the same snarky wit as Elf. Plus, sideburns, big lapels, and giant mustaches!

July 16 For better or for worse, it wouldn't be summer without a Will Smith movie. So thank goodness director Alex Proyas (Dark City) is bringing us I, Robot. As usual, Big Willie plays a cop; this go-round he's investigating a murderous robot in future-flung Chicago. Whether or not he'll be able to top that scene in Bad Boys II where he plunges his arm into a corpse and rifles around for contraband remains to be seen.

July 23 The Bourne Identity was surprisingly entertaining, so hopefully Matt Damon can continue his streak of making Ben Affleck's career look ever more pitiful with the sequel, The Bourne Supremacy. Also this week: Halle Berry wears the most ludicrous superhero outfit ever, in Catwoman. Come on, Hollywood! What in the hell? Overall, it's just a bad summer for felines (see June 11). At this rate, dogs are set to dominate with Benji Returns: Rags-to-Riches (due in August).

July 30 Yeah, they made a live-action Thunderbirds movie. And yeah, they remade The Manchurian Candidate (could be pretty stellar, with a cast that includes Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep and an updated Gulf War story line). Meanwhile, nerdy-nerds are panting over the latest from M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense), last seen assuring us hydrophobic aliens could actually invade Earth – a planet 70 percent covered in water – in Signs. The Village stars Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt, and Sigourney Weaver as residents of an isolated hamlet living in fear of mysterious creatures who haunt the local woods. If Shyamalan doesn't spring a shockaroo twist ending, that'll be a shockaroo twist in itself.

Aug. 6 Tom Cruise works a gray coif and a bad temper in Michael Mann's hired-gun thriller Collateral. Me, I'm still trying to figure out how Cruise's Last Samurai character miraculously survived that film's last-act hail of bullets. Those who also howled with derisive laughter during that scene will be happy to learn that there is life beyond big-headed movie stars. This weekend also heralds what could be the summer's sleeper hit: Open Water, a low-budget Sundance hit – dubbed "Jaws meets The Blair Witch Project" – about a pair of scuba divers accidentally abandoned in shark-infested waters. The C.G.-free flick features real sharkage – which will no doubt add to the real fear you'll experience while watching it.

Aug. 13-27 Open Water is one of very few horror selections in an action-heavy summer. In fact, scary movie fans have to wait till August to get the goods, but they come quickly as summer starts winding down, with the long-awaited Alien vs. Predator, directed by Resident Evil's Paul W.S. Anderson (Aug. 13); the finished-then-entirely-reshot Exorcist: The Beginning (Aug. 20); and the wow-they-made-a-sequel? Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (Aug. 27). Giant, pissed-off jungle snakes devouring arrogant, searching-for-the-fountain-of-youth humans? Pass the Sno-Caps!