John Wayne was never really a marine. Harrison Ford was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, while Sly Stallone was teaching sports at a girl's school in France. But movie audiences love spending their idle time in idol worship. This summer promises a record congestion of avengers, saviours, adventurers and underdogs, most of them already familiar to audiences, blazing through the multiplexes.
Summer is traditionally the season that pays the bills for the rest of the Hollywood year and familiarity breeds box office.
Last year's sequel-stuffed season (13 of them) managed to set a summer box-office record of more than $4-billion, but most of that depended on an increase in ticket prices. This year, studios are particularly enamoured of sequels, television adaptations and - kapow! - comic books: Batman, Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk.
Fortunately, we live in a time when the definition of heroism is flexible, so, instead of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you might prefer Samantha Jones in this summer's Sex and the City: The Movie (which could be called "The Quest for the Skull-rattling Orgasm"). Here are a few of the different heroic models available in the next four months: The list does not attempt to be valiantly exhaustive.
The Comic-Book Guys
When May comes, it's time to pull on your tights and fight crime. Enter Iron Man (May 2), a project that seems to have been in development since about the time metal was first discovered. Jon Favreau ( Elf) directs, and Robert Downey Jr. stars as Tony Stark, the billionaire inventor who dons his suit of armour to thwart, as the official website puts it, "a nefarious plot with global implications."
He's big, very angry and green - no, not Al Gore, but The Incredible Hulk (June 13), which stars Edward Norton, who also co-wrote the screenplay. He plays Bruce Banner, a scientist trying to find a cure for his anger-and-pigment-management problems, while Tim Roth plays the unsubtly named villain The Abomination, but he may not be the only one. There were reports this week that Norton and director Louis Leterrier had their cut taken away from them.
Drawing from contemporary comic-book sources, there's Wanted (June 27), directed by Russian Timur Bekmambetov and loosely based on a series by Mark Millar, starring James McAvoy, an office drone who is trained by a sexy assassin (Angelina Jolie, of course) to unlock his hidden superpowers.
The action-comedy Hancock (July 2) isn't based on a comic. but it parodies one. The Peter Berg-directed film stars Will Smith as a much-despised superhero, Jason Bateman as his publicist and Charlize Theron as the publicist's wife.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (July 11) is directed by Guillermo del Toro ( Pan's Labyrinth), with Ron Pearlman as the wry, self-deprecating demon hero. This time out, Hellboy must prevent the resurrection of a "golden army" of mythical creatures.
Finally, there's the mid-summer shadow of director Christopher Nolan's Batman movie, The Dark Knight (July 18), whose young co-star Heath Ledger died in January. In this sequel to Batman Begins, Christian Bale returns as the caped crusader, fighting the diabolical Joker (Ledger, with lipstick smeared like late-career Lucille Ball), who pushes Batman to test his moral boundaries.
Heroes of Cinema
An improbable 1980s action sequel arrives with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May 22), which comes 19 years after the third film in the series. Steven Spielberg directs again, with a script co-written by George Lucas and with Harrison Ford as Indy in the Cold War, pitted against a Russian agent (Cate Blanchett in a black pageboy wig) in a struggle for a crystal skull. Apparently the skull possesses magical powers, like easing the creaky joints of sexagenarian action heroes.
The Mummy series, obviously derived from the Indiana Jones franchise, returns for the third time with The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Aug. 1), starring Brendan Fraser as an archeologist fighting demons in China, with Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh.
The Sundance hit Son of Rambow (May 2), written and directed by Garth Jennings ( The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), is a disarmingly sweet movie of English schoolboys in the mid-1980s, creating their own Rambo sequel, which turns out to be more exciting than that absurdity Sly Stallone foisted on us earlier this year.
Sci-fi and fantasy heroes
The Wachowski brothers ( The Matrix trilogy) return with the most anticipated fanboy film of the year, Speed Racer (May 9), adapted from a 1960s Japanese animated series. It stars Emile Hirsch as Speed, with Christina Ricci as his girlfriend, and features a striking anime-influenced visual style with family-oriented content.
A week later, it's time to dust off the C.S. Lewis collection for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (May 16). With director Andrew Adamson and the cast and writers returning from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, don't expect much change in tone. The four Pevensie children return, one year later in their time, 1,300 years in Narnia time, to help a young prince battle an evil king. British comedian Eddie Izzard plays the swashbuckling mouse Reepicheep.
After the disaster of The Lady in the Water, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan went into hiding, but fear not - or rather, fear again: He's back with The Happening (June 13), a thriller about a family (starring Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel) on the run from a mysterious crisis that threatens humanity.
Brendan Fraser jumps into his second adventure movie in a month with Journey to the Centre of the Earth: 3D (July 11), this time as a scientist who discovers a portal in the Earth, adapted from Jules Verne's 1864 novel.
Did Eddie Murphy learn his lesson with his extraterrestrial flop Pluto Nash? Let's hope so; he's returning with Meet Dave (July 11), where he plays, not an alien, but a spaceship who falls in love with a human, leaving his tiny alien passengers in a tizzy.
The truth was out there, back in the nineties. Now, it's back again with The X-Files: I Want to Believe (July 25), as Chris Carter, creator of the 1993 television series, returns with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as the paranormal sleuths. The new movie won't just be a rehash of the TV show's mythology, and, Carter vows, will not involve any aliens - including those living in Eddie Murphy's pants.
Cartoon heroes
For the past few years, moviegoers have noticed a curious phenomenon. Adult movies are often juvenile but such children's movies as Shrek and Ratatouille are sophisticated. This summer brings some promising new offerings; Kung Fu Panda (June 6) stars Jack Black as a pudgy slacker panda who joins a kung-fu-fighting animal team (Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross) to protect their valley from an evil leopard. Suggested alternative title: "Eats, shoots and leaves."
Jumping ahead 700 years or so, to when Earth is no longer inhabited by humans, there's Wall-E (June 27) from Andrew Staunton ( Finding Nemo), a Pixar film about the last robot left on an abandoned planet. He has the bad luck to fall in love with a cold-hearted girl robot sent down from a space probe.
Perhaps because it's been three years since a new entry in the Star Wars franchise, Lucas is also weighing in again with Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Aug. 15) an animated movie featuring characters of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé Amidala.
If you thought Ratatouille was un peu disgusting, steel yourself for Fly Me to the Moon (Aug. 22), a 3-D animated film about three young flies who decide to become the first insects on the moon by hitching a ride on the Apollo 11 mission. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin's in the voice cast and what, after all, could be more endearing that moon maggots?
Heroes in the battle
of love
The first major romantic comedy of the season is Made of Honor (May 2). Patrick Dempsey ( Grey's Anatomy, Enchanted) plays an oblivious hunk who takes his best female friend (Michelle Monaghan) for granted, until she goes away to Scotland and finds herself a fiancé. He agrees to be the maid of honour, as a stratagem to win her back.
And then, after four years of being off the air, Carrie got to thinking about relationships again. Yes, we're talking Sex and the City: The Movie (May 30). Fans can catch up with the emotional crises and fashion choices of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and learn new stories about their weddings, babies, affairs and footwear. Rumour has it that Mr. Big (Chris Noth) even reveals his full name. Not just John (revealed in the last episode), but the whole, long package.
Greg Behrendt, a writer on Sex and the City, took a phrase from that show's dialogue and turned it into an advice book. Now He's Just Not That Into You (Aug. 1) is the title of a multistrand romantic comedy, with Drew Barrymore as a woman who pursues an advice columnist. Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Connolly and Kris Kristofferson also appear.
Wrapping up the girl-bonding summer, the ensemble story of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 (Aug. 8) follows the 2005 hit, based on Ann Brashares's series of novels about teenaged girls who all fit a versatile pair of jeans, with Alexis Bledel and America Ferrera. It's like Sex and the City, but without a city, and not so much sex or fashion.
Comic heroes
Adam Sandler stars as a lethal Israeli Mossad agent who fakes his death to become a New York hairdresser in You Don't Mess with the Zohan (June 6), but the real deadly comic showdown takes place on June 20. That's the day of the launch of the Steve Carell-starring Get Smart, based on the Mel Brooks/Buck Henry-created sixties TV spy series - with Anne Hathaway as sexy Agent 99 and Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson as Agent 23.
The same day sees the release of The Love Guru, starring Mike Myers as a platitude-spouting, India-raised self-help counsellor. Jessica Alba co-stars and many celebrity cameos are included. Fans of Myers's Austin Powers movies will be relieved to know his humour doesn't seem to have matured: There's an Indian character called Guru Satchabigknoba.
Rainn Wilson ( The Office) stars in The Rocker (Aug. 1), a comedy featuring a middle-aged rock drummer who gets a second chance at fame, playing with his nephew's high-school band.
Pineapple Express (Aug. 8), a stoners-on-the-lam comedy, sounds intriguing. It's a collaboration between producer Judd Apatow ( The 40-Year-Old Virgin), writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg ( Superbad) and director David Gordon Green, critically admired for art-house films such as George Washington and All the Real Girls.
Tropic Thunder (Aug 15) is Ben Stiller's first directing effort since Zoolander, a satire about an Apocalypse Now-style movie shoot that goes badly awry in the jungle. Robert Downey Jr. plays an obsessive actor assuming a role written for a black man, so he dyes his skin and preaches uplifting messages from The Jeffersons theme song. Perhaps it seems less heroic than donning a suit of armour in Iron Man, but no one can say that putting on black face in 2008 doesn't take courage. CANADIAN SUMMER
Any decent film that gets made in Canada involves a few acts of heroism. Here are three much-talked-about Canadian movies being released in the next couple of months. Two of them are based on acclaimed Canadian novels, and the other may have incited the Tory government to censorship by its title alone.
Fugitive Pieces
(May 2)
Jeremy Podeswa has adapted Anne Michaels's time-shifting poetic novel about Jakob, a Polish boy rescued from the Nazis by a Greek archeologist (Rade Serbedzija) who grows up to become a writer (Stephen Dillane) in Toronto.
The Stone Angel
(May 9)
Margaret Laurence's canonical Canadian novel was adapted by writer-director Kari Skogland, with Ellen Burstyn starring as the curmudgeonly Hagar Shipley, recalling her life and mistakes. Newcomer Christina Horne plays the headstrong young Hagar.
Young People Fucking
(June 13)
Martin Gero's ensemble comedy follows four twentysomething hetero couples and one threesome through sexual encounters from foreplay to afterglow, all shot in their bedrooms. The film has had an unexpected boost in profile from proponents of Ottawa's controversial tax bill against naughty films, who clearly never read early reviews that described YPF as "dialogue driven."
L.L.
Liam Lacey