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The summer's movie forecast?

Indiana Jones, grizzled and well-worn, is as comfortable as an old leather coat. Batman remains dark and brooding, as mysterious as cryptic script on an ancient temple. Reassuring, ain't it?

This Summer Film Season everyone else will play in their shadows.

Which is not to say that the annual May-August slate doesn't contain some "indy" delights of a different kind, plus the usual run of romantic and goofball comedies, special- effects salvos, animated romps and breakneck thrillers.

It's what summer is all about. And it revs up Friday with the opening of "Speed Racer," the Wachowski ("Matrix") brothers' live-action update of the TV cartoon show, featuring "Into the Wild" star Emile Hirsch, sidekick Christina Ricci and enough "concept" cars to please enthusiasts of every stripe.

Hoping to deflect at least some filmgoers from repeat trips to the bijou for I. Jones and Batman are veteran box-office boxers Will Smith, Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler, not to mention big-screen newcomers Carrie & Co. of TV's "Sex and the City" fame. There's also the return of the "Narnia" kids, the surly Incredible Hulk and a pair of familiar couples: paranormal sleuths Mulder and Scully and comic spymasters Maxwell Smart and Agent 99.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Crack the whip

Harrison Ford (a spry 65) and Karen Allen are together again in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (May 22), which marks the long-awaited reappearance of the archaeologist-adventurer. Set in 1957 with a game but somewhat long-in-the-tooth Indy no longer having the Nazis as his foil, now he's battling those dastardly Commies, not the least of whom is a nefarious Cate Blanchett.

It's been 19 years since the last movie, believe it or not, but the fourth film happily brings back fan favorite Marion Ravenwood (Allen), Indy's plucky love interest from 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

These gussied-up re-creations of the old Saturday-morning serials of the 1940s are what those cheesy cliffhangers dreamed of being. Unlike his overwrought "Star Wars" special-effects exercises, George Lucas is keeping this franchise comparatively low-tech.

Why you should care: What, are you kidding?

The Dark Knight

Chris ("Memento") Nolan has made Batman very much his own. "The Dark Knight" (July 18) resumes the saga of Bruce Wayne after the events of "Batman Begins," but even as intense a leading man as Christian Bale might wind up being upstaged by the late Heath Ledger's rather bizarre take on the Caped Crusader's chief nemesis, the Joker, much the same way Jack Nicholson stole Michael Keaton's thunder in 1989's "Batman."

Why you should care: Because, like Nolan's "Batman Begins," it figures to be a comic book with bite.

The Will Smith-Charlize Theron popcorn flick "Hancock" (July 2) is a bit of a puzzler. It's an effects-heavy tale of an alcoholic superhero trying to restore his image that runs from daffy theatrics to supposedly sober drama. An unstable mix, at best. But the guy's got real-world problems like you and me. He's also got the comely Theron as his co-star, unlike thee and me.

Why you should care: With a run of holiday hits like "Men in Black," Smith has planted his flag on the Fourth of July weekend.

PROVIDED

Kristin Davis, (from left) Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall star in the much anticipated film version of “Sex and the City.”

Old friends

HBO's risque "Sex and the City" cable TV series, which folded in 2004, had its ardent fans and its equally impassioned critics. After many a delay and a premature death knell, "Sex and the City" the movie (May 30) finally finds lovelorn columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) back in her element. Commiserating with her are Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon, with Chris Noth as the token male. The ladies are a bit older, more seasoned and, frankly, a lot less amorous than they were on cable. Word is the film's not so much about sex (apart from bawdy talk) as it is about commitment, family and aging.

Why you should care: Hmmm. What's sauce for the goose, maybe?

Series creator Chris Carter is directing "X-Files: I Want to Believe" (July 25), the second feature based on his popular conspiracy- mongering TV show, which left the air six years ago. Carter reunites with stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson (Mulder and Scully), who invested years in the FBI chasing aliens and supernatural beings, just like real life. What's the plot? Carter's mum, except to say it's "within the realm of extreme scientific possibility."

Why you should care: No one can play worried like Anderson, or droll like Duchovny.

Would you believe ... that yet another send-up staple of '60s TV is being recycled for the movies? The track record for such films is abysmal, but maybe, just maybe, the folks behind "Get Smart" (June 20) will take their script as seriously as bumbling superspy Maxwell Smart took himself. Steve Carell is a shrewd choice to re-create the role originated by Don Adams, with Anne Hathaway agreeably long and willowy enough to stand in for Barbara Feldon as the sexy/crafty Agent 99. Terence Stamp brings his dour countenance to the part of the villain.

Why you should care: Problematical if it jettisons the original spoofy tone.

Kids of all ages

It's over the rainbow again for Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie in "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (May 16), the second installment in the fantasy series drawn from the books of C.S. Lewis. This time the Pevensies gain a new ally, Caspian (Ben Barnes), rightful heir to Narnia's throne, and renew acquaintances with Aslan the lion (a rumbling Liam Neeson).

No one needs to tell the Hulk to go green. In "The Incredible Hulk" (June 13), Edward Norton replaces Eric Bana as the scientist you don't want to see angry. The original "Hulk" movie was a surprising bomb for the usually fail-safe director Ang Lee, so the Marvel Comic's corps regrouped with a new star and a plan to better meld the comic-book ethos with the old TV show that starred the late Bill Bixby.

Comic echoes of "AI" inform Pixar-Disney's latest animated wizardry, "Wall-E" (June 27), in which a janitorial robot is left to tend planet Earth after humanity's departure. "Finding Nemo" director Andrew Stanton is at the helm.

Brendan Fraser moves underground with a hokey-jokey 3-D remake of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (July 11), a "modern twist on Jules Verne's classic" (filmed intelligently in 1959 with James Mason). Then, it's back to the Mummy movies for Fraser, in the company of Maria Bello, for "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (Aug. 1)

A raft of daft

Eddie Murphy plays himself, sort of, in the comedy "Meet Dave" (July 11). The plot is shopworn, to say the least, with Murphy as the chief of a band of diminutive aliens scouting Earth because their own world is in peril. And they do it incognito: blending in with humanity by zipping around in a ship that looks just like ... Eddie Murphy.

Adam Sandler co-wrote "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" (June 6) with Judd Apatow ("Knocked Up"), but the box office depends on how Sandler's Israeli-commando-turned-Manhattan-hairdresser plays with audiences.

For his part, Jack Black brings the customary outrageousness to the animated action comedy "Kung Fu Panda" (June 6). Black provides the voice for the cherubic Po, a panda working in a noodle shop who becomes a martial-arts master and goes claw to claw with an evil snow leopard. Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu also can be heard.

Robert Downey Jr. sheds his Iron Man suit for co-writer, director and star Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" (Aug. 15), a broad comedy about a bunch of self-centered actors whose ill-starred location shoot on a jungle-bound Vietnam War movie finds them facing real-world drug smugglers.

Meanwhile, the inevitable Will Ferrell reunites with John C. Reilly and director Adam McKay for "Step Brothers" (July 25), the saga of two grown men still living with their parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins).

Worth a look

"Wanted" (June 13) is Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov ("Nightwatch") Hollywood debut, an adaptation of the graphic novel about an ordinary guy (James McAvoy) recruited by a woman (Angelina Jolie) to join an elite team of assassins. ... Phyllida Lloyd's "Mamma Mia!" (July 18) showcases Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard and the songs of ABBA in an adaptation of the stage musical. ... Jennifer Lopez's ex, Ben Affleck, is cast with (Gad!) two new Jennifers — Aniston and Connelly — along with Scarlett Johansson and Drew Barrymore for the romantic comedy "He's Just Not That Into You" (Aug. 1).

Lastly, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan tries to bounce back from recent failures with "The Happening" (June 13), a suitably eerie thriller about a high school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) trying to thwart the effects of a strange and deadly force. And, no, it's not Will Ferrell.

Be warned, many opening dates are tentative.

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.

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