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Conspiracy-loving fans of Dan Brown's puzzle-packed novel, The Da Vinci Code, will undoubtedly want to know what's really going on behind the studios' summer release schedule. Is it really just coincidence that The Da Vinci Code is directed by Ron Howard, who became famous playing Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, while the bad guys in the book belong to the Catholic organization Opus Dei? Or that the novel's hero, Harvard professor Robert Langdon, is played instead by Tom Hanks, whose name is an anagram for "Monk's hat"?

No doubt it's the summer of signs and portents leading to the Hollywood apocalypse. This year, some of the most expensive sequels and franchise movies in history are facing off on weekends throughout May to July. As Peter Bart wrote in a recent Variety column, "the movies of the summer of '06 have to produce record numbers or heads will roll," in a year that will represent either a "validation of Hollywood's modus operandi, or its ultimate refutation."

Ultimate Refutation — what a title. This summer, there are no less than five movies with $125-million plus budgets in what is shaping up as the summer of God and mammon. A word of Aramaic origin, mammon means riches. Mammon was also the name of the Antichrist in Constantine, one of last year's big box-office duds, which started the studios praying for relief. Of course, God had a big year at the movies in 2004 with Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Though The Da Vinci Code can be seen as the Passion backlash, it also heralds a certain spirit of religiosity in the air: Reborn heroes, apocalyptic stand-offs and the devil himself are all at work in the name of box-office resurrection. As a guide for the perplexed, the financial and spiritual values of each film are rated on a scale of zero to 10.

May 5

Mission: Impossible III

Couch-hopping, thetan-level-nine operating Scientologist Tom Cruise has been acting wacky for about a year now, so it will be interesting to see if audiences will pay to see the movie star even as they cool to the personality. We won't call the movie cursed, but there have been problems: Director David Fincher (Alias, Fight Club) started and left. So did Joe Carnahan (Narc) and a string of stars (Scarlett Johansson, Kenneth Branagh, Carrie-Anne Moss) came and went. The new helmsman is J. J. Abrams (the TV series Alias and Lost), and has an ace with Oscar-winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a sadistic arms-dealer. Trailers show a car blowing up, Tom rappelling down a skyscraper and jumping off a bridge, some Italian scenery and Michelle Monaghan as the love interest.

Mammon value: 9.

Spiritual value: 3, because there's something vaguely Satanic about the odd punctuation of the title.

The Promise

Gods and goddesses, heroes and slaves are featured in the latest film from Chinese director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine), who has followed his countryman Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) in leaving art and history behind in favour of a sumptuous action fantasy.

Mammon value: 5.

Spiritual value: 7, for a message of love, loyalty and the importance of pretty colours.

Hoot

Adapted from Carl Hiaasen's kids novel, produced by and featuring a cameo by the writer's buddy, Jimmy Buffett, Hoot is about a teen who defends burrowing owls' habitat, endangered by a local pancake house.

Mammon: 3.

Spiritual: 7, for promoting good stewardship of the planet.

May 12

Poseidon

Before Titanic, there was the quintessential seventies' disaster flick, The Poseidon Adventure, on the usual Tower of Babel theme of showing how technological pride goeth before a fall. The director is Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm), who knows how to direct movies about sea disasters. The cast includes Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss.

Mammon: 8.

Spiritual: 4, for Jonah and the Whale allusions.

May 19

The Da Vinci Code

Tom Hanks stars as Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou as his cute French cryptologist and Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing in this $125-million (U.S.) self-styled "thinking man's action movie." The plot plays out like a computer adventure game about how sneaky Catholic clerics have been hiding the truth about Jesus for centuries. The best part is you get the entire story without having to endure Dan Brown's prose.

Mammon: 8.

Spiritual: 9, because it provides clergymen everywhere with a pop-culture hook for their sermons.

Over the Hedge

This animated feature tells the story of a con-artist raccoon (Bruce Willis) that encounters a quiet, timid community of forest animals and teaches them about raiding human garbage.

Mammon: 6.

Spiritual: 7, for teaching an anti-materialist message without sacrificing valuable sponsorship and marketing opportunities.

May 26

X-Men: The Last Stand

The roots may be a comic book, but the themes of this $150-million (U.S.) capper to the X-Men trilogy sounds like an updated Paradise Lost. Mutant Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) taps into a cosmic power that can destroy humanity. Darwinian baddy Magneto (Ian McKellen) goes head-to-head with the mutants promoting tolerance, led by Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Kelsey Grammer and Canada's Ellen Page join the sprawling cast. Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2) directs.

Mammon: 9.

Spiritual: 8, for a story of resurrection, evolution debate and an ultimate battle between the forces of good and evil.

June 2

The Break-Up

Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn play a couple that split up but refuse to leave their shared condo. This comic recapitulation of her high-profile bust-up with Brad Pitt is obviously Aniston's attempt at distancing herself from her scorned-woman image, and improving her karma. The strategy seems to have worked: She got a new boyfriend, Vaughn, out of the deal, who makes up for in wit what he lacks in abs.

Mammon: 7.

Spiritual: 4, for smirking in the face of the idolatrous force of Brangelina.

June 6

The Omen

Opening on 6/6/06, this remake of the 1976 film about a man (Liev Schreiber) who discovers that his adopted child is the devil also stars Mia Farrow and Julia Stiles.

Mammon: 5.

Spiritual: 9, because it reminds us the devil can be anywhere, including the nursery.

June 9

Cars

The latest from John Lasseter (Toy Story) and the whizzes at Pixar features the voice of Owen Wilson as a vain racecar who learns about family and friendship when he's stranded in a backward community.

Mammon: 9.

Spiritual: 4. Promoting carbon-fuels to a new generation mars the slow-down-and-smell-the-hoses message.

A Prairie Home Companion

There were good notices from the Venice Film Festival for Robert Altman's direction of Garrison Keillor's dramedy about the last episode of a long-standing radio show. Easygoing and folksy, it includes a big-name cast including Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline.

Mammon: 5.

Spiritual: 7, for promoting civility.

June 16

Nacho Libre

Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess teams up with Jack Black, who plays a Mexican wrestler.

Mammon: 6.

Spiritual: 2, because it is not good for your soul to see Jack Black in tights.

June 21

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man

A combination of interview and tribute concert at the Sydney Opera House, with Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright and Antony Hegarty performing Cohen numbers, before the songwriter appears with U2 at a New York club at the end.

Mammon: 3.

Spiritual: 9, especially because it's executive-produced by Cohen fan Mel Gibson who, as Amy Phillips of Pitchforkmedia.com notes, is famous for "his other movie about a Jew with a fanatical cult following."

June 23

Click

Adam Sandler plays a busy dad who discovers the ultimate remote control — it can stop the world.

Mammon: 7.

Spiritual: 1. Though the family-values message is sweet, the sadistic trailer shows Sandler punching David Hasselhoff in the head and letting a child get hit in the face with a ball.

June 28

Strangers With Candy

A prequel to the Comedy Central series starring oddball actress-writer Amy Sedaris as the 4645-year-old ex-junkie prostitute who goes back to high school to try to be a good girl. The film, co-written by The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert, who also stars as a gay Christian teacher, got a mixed reaction at its Sundance debut.

Mammon: 2.

Spiritual: 5, for a profile of someone trying to be good in a bad world.

June 30

Superman Returns

In what is expected to be the biggest moneymaker of the year, Superman, played by Christopher Reeve look-alike Brandon Routh, returns to Earth after a six-year absence (and a 23-year absence from the screen) to discover that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is a single mom, Metropolis no longer needs a hero and Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is plotting his demise. The $185-million Superman, always the most messianic of superheroes, gets a more blatantly Christian message this time out — at least judging by the teaser trailer. As his father Jore-El tells the baby: "For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you, my only son."

Mammon: 10.

Spirituality: 9 for its meta-mythic meditation on heroism.

July 7

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

In this $200-million sequel, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) must find a way out of his debt to Davy Jones or be doomed to eternal damnation and his fate may interfere with the wedding plans of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley).

Mammon: 9.

Spirituality: 6, for its themes ofabout freedom versus treasure and afterworld punishment.

A Scanner Darkly

Richard Linklater (Before Sunset) goes back to the semi-animated technique of Rotoscope to direct this film, adapted from a Phillip K. Dick story about a future paranoid world where 20 per cent of the population is addicted to one drug. Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder star.

Mammon: 5.

Spirituality: 6, as a portrait of high-tech purgatory.

July 21

Lady in the Water

M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) leaves his scary games behind but sticks with the supernatural in a story wherein a homely janitor (Paul Giamatti) befriends a sweet young thing (Bryce Dallas Howard) in his apartment pool. Oh yeah — and she's actually a "narf" from a bedtime story trying to get back to bedtime-story land.

Mammon: 5.

Spirituality: 6, for Shyamalan's emphasis on the credibly miraculous.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) directs this comedy starring Luke Wilson as a man who dumps his girlfriend (Uma Thurman), who turns out to be a superheroine bent on revenge. Perhaps he should have seen Kill Bill.

Mammon: 5.

Spirituality: 5, for the reminder of the commandment that thou shalt not sleep with anyone crazier than thou art.

July 28

Miami Vice

It's going down, man. Michael Mann returns to the TV show he created in the early nineties and refits it with fewer Versace jackets and less Jan Hammer guitar. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx assume the Crockett and Tubbs roles as undercover drug cops.

Mammon: 8.

Spirituality: zero, because it's a cold, Godless world of drug-dealers and rough justice.

Little Miss Sunshine

Classic Sundance off-beat comedy about a messed-up family travelling across America to a beauty contest, featuring Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell and Toni Collette and a brief but memorable turn by Alan Arkin.

Mammon: 4.

Spirituality: 3, for the message that you don't have to be a beauty to boogie down.

I Could Never Be Your Woman

Michelle Pfeiffer returns to the screen with director Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) in an older woman/younger man comedy wherein Pfeiffer plays the TV producer of a teen sitcom who falls for one of her potential actors.

Mammon: 6.

Spirituality: 4, for casting Tracey Ullman, as capricious Mother Nature.

Aug. 4

Apocalypto

What Mel Gibson did for Christianity, he's prepared to do for Mayan civilization. Set 3,000 years ago, and spoken entirely in an obscure Mayan dialect, Gibson's latest sees the civilization facing its decline and attempting to build more temples and offer more sacrifices to appease the gods. Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) is chosen to be killed but prefers to run away.

Mammon: 7.

Spirituality: 9. "A great civilization is not conquered from without," begins the trailer. It's about us, right? And our perverted values and how the end is coming soon.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Will Ferrell stars in this comedy about a legendary NASCAR driver whose dominance of the sport is threatened by a Frenchman (Sacha Baron Cohen, aka comedian Ali G).

Mammon: 7.

Spirituality: 10, because when Ferrell's character believes his Wonder Bread Chevy car is on fire, he runs around the track in his underwear yelling: "Help me, Jesus Help me, Jewish god Help me, Tom Cruise"

Aug. 9

World Trade Center

Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena play the two New York Port Authority cops who were the last two survivors rescued from the debris of the twin towers in this Oliver Stone-directed film. Stone describes it as a "no-nonsense, austere, vérité document" that avoids politics.

Mammon: 6.

Spiritual: 5, for emphasizing endurance and compassion, but perpetuating the victim/hero confusion that became prevalent in the rhetoric of Sept. 11, 2001.

Aug. 11

The Reaping

Hilary Swank plays a former Christian missionary who loses her faith and becomes a professional religious debunker, until she discovers a Louisiana town that appears to be suffering from Biblical punishments and must regain her faith to battle evil. Blockbuster king Joel Silver is the producer.

Mammon: 7.

Spirituality: 9, for the prodigal Hilary theme.

Aug. 18

Clerks II

The working title was The Passion of the Clerks, as Kevin Smith revisits Dante and Randall 10 years down the line, when they have taken new jobs at a McDisney fast-food chain.

Mammon: 7.

Spirituality: 5. Smith, a practising Catholic who made the religious satire Dogma, is all about the spirituality — even if he is a potty mouth.

Snakes on a Plane

This is probably the biggest advance Internet-generated buzz on any film since The Blair Witch Project. Reportedly both the ridiculous title and the script were influenced by Internet fan pressure. Samuel L. Jackson stars.

Mammon: 6.

Spirituality: 1, because, apart from the Adam and Eve connection, it's about getting scared, not sacred.

Also opening this summer — and they're Canadian

Bon Cop / Bad Cop

An $8.1-million police comedy — it's bilingual, too — about Canada's two solitudes, culminating in a Toronto/Montreal hockey game. Colm Feore plays an Ontario cop, and co-scriptwriter Patrick Huard his Quebec counterpart. Bringing them together is a dead body found lying on their mutual border.

Trailer Park Boys: The Big Dirty

Mike Clattenburg's hit Canadian comedy series gets its much-anticipated big-screen debut — and provides hope for the English-Canadian box office — as we follow Ricky and Julian's release from prison, first meeting with Bubbles and subsequent life in Sunnyvale Trailer Park. Ivan Reitman is executive producer.