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Summer movie preview

Nearly half of the year's box office comes from the crop of summer movies. As to quality, well, that's a different matter.

There are good films to be found in the next four months, but you have to choose carefully. Capsule summaries of this summer's blockbusters appear below, or you can use these links to skip to Hap's Summer Picks or The Dogs of Summer.

Paramount Pictures A preview in pictures Take a sneak peak of this summer's movie line-up, including Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible III.' Movie slide shows: Summer Preview 'Cars' 'Mission: Impossible III' 'Poseidon' 'The Da Vinci Code' 'Over the Hedge' 'Superman Returns' 'The Wild' 'X-Men: The Last Stand'

The Blockbusters

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III (May 5)

Photo gallery

Cast: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames

Director: J.J. Abrams

The Pitch: Crack open the dossier files, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his M:I team are back in action, out to quash an evil arms dealer (Is there another kind?) who gets personal with Hunt, threatening his girlfriend, and you know that means big trouble.

The Scouting Report: The villains usually have the juicier roles in these pictures and the buzz is that newly Oscared Hoffman steals the movie out from under Cruise. Whether the picture is any good, it is bound to be a movie machine, which takes a lot of the pressure off of rookie feature director Abrams.

POSEIDON (May 12)

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Cast: Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum.

Director: Wolfgang Petersen.

The Pitch: It's New Year's Eve aboard a luxury cruise ship and there is a humongous tidal wave heading for it. The boat capsizes and everyone tries to survive in an upside-down world that is gradually sinking.

The Scouting Report: Petersen, the go-to guy for disaster flicks on the high seas (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm), apparently does not believe in computer-generated effects, so that's a real wall of water and an actual overturned ship set, albeit in a giant tank. A remake, of course, of the 1969 Poseidon Adventure, but made for a whole lot more money (a reported $175 million) on a shoot where many cast members sustained injuries.

THE DA VINCI CODE (May 19)

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Cast: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Paul Bettany

Director: Ron Howard

The Pitch: What, you didn't read the Dan Brown book? When a murder takes place in the Louvre, a Harvard professor of religious symbols (Hanks) and a French cryptologist (Tautou) team up to solve the crime, but are soon in over their têtes uncovering a conspiracy and cover-up of biblical proportions.

The Scouting Report: Fundamentalist groups are infuriated by this novel and movie, apparently because neither declares itself to be fiction loud or often enough. Still, the casting feels right, adaptor Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) is said to be fairly faithful to the book.

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (May 26)

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Cast: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, Patrick Stewart

Director: Brett Ratner

The Pitch: The world's most famous mutants are back, plus plenty of colleagues not previously on the big screen, in a final (but don't believe it) installment having to do with a potential cure for the mutant gene.

The Scouting Report: Floridian Ratner is a few steps down from Bryan Singer (busy with Superman Returns) and the third installment in a franchise is when the cheese often starts smelling, but seeing so many of the original cast back is a hopeful sign.

CARS (June 9)

Photo gallery

Cast: Voices of Paul Newman, Owen Wilson and Larry the Cable Guy

Director: John Lasseter

The Pitch: Think of Toy Story, but with autos. Racing cars gain human attributes, heading to a championship race until one of the fleet breaks down in a sleepy town out of the highway.

The Scouting Report: Never bet against Pixar, which not only sets the standard for computer animation, but understands the value of storytelling. Look for an avalanche of toy product tie-ins and a level of humor for adults as well as kids, who surely have no idea who Newman is.

SUPERMAN RETURNS (June 30)

'Photo gallery'

Cast: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey

Director: Bryan Singer

The Pitch: It has been 23 years since the previous Man of Steel flick, but the Kryptonite-phobic guy is back, getting back into the action do-gooder business, having a reunion with Lois Lane (Bosworth), who is now a mother, and dealing with the maniacal Lex Luthor (Spacey).

The Scouting Report: Brandon who? The movie's unknown star may put a dent in its box office, but the Supe still reigns among superheroes and Singer proved he knew his way around the genre with X-Men.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST (July 7)

Cast: Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom

Director: Gore Verbinski

The Pitch: Rock star pirate Jack Sparrow (Depp) is back onboard, entangled with supernatural sea captain Davy Jones and a search for his underwater booty in this sequel to 2003's surprise megahit.

The Scouting Report: A successful movie based on a theme park ride seemed unlikely initially, but now producer Jerry Bruckheimer is so bullish on the franchise he made two follow-up episodes at the same time.

MIAMI VICE (July 28)

Cast: Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx.

Director: Michael Mann

The Pitch: Dade detectives Crockett and Tubbs seem like such artifacts of the '80s, but director Mann pulls these ultra-hip narcotics cops into the 21st century, with stops in Haiti, Cuba, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and, oh, yeah, South Florida.

The Scouting Report: It sounds like The Making of Miami Vice would be a more exciting movie, for gossip about confrontations on the set were leaking out daily, as the cast and crew also contended with last year's hurricane mess. If anyone can pull this off, it will be Mann.

Hap's Summer Picks

THE BREAK-UP (June 2)

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Aniston

Director: Peyton Reed

The Pitch: Vaughn and Aniston — "an item" in real life, as they say — play a couple at the end of their relationship who are entangled together in real estate, so they decide to continue living together in their jointly owned Chicago condo.

The Scouting Report: The good news is they are not professional assassins, as in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, so this movie has a head start toward success. The premise sounds promising, Vaughn can usually rise above weak writing and the trailer looks like fun. Maybe that's because of Aniston's peek-a-boo nude scene.

A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (June 9)

Cast: Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, Garrison Keillor

Director: Robert Altman

The Pitch: Things are gloomy at St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theatre, where the cast of America's favorite live variety radio show prepares for its last broadcast, since a Texas oil magnate has bought the station and pulled the plug.

The Scouting Report: He may be 81 and he may have had a heart transplant, but Altman is back doing what he does best, observant, wry comedy ground in character — lots of characters — stitched together from hours of improvisation. Think of it as an apolitical Nashville.

THE HEART OF THE GAME (June 14)

Cast: Bill Resler, Darnellia Russell

Director: Ward Serrill

The Pitch: A Seattle accounting professor molds a bunch of young female athletes into a winning basketball team in this unsentimental documentary.

The Scouting Report: Russell is said to be the film's standout, as she tries to figure out her life. This one could make basketball the next movie craze, replacing dance classes and spelling bees.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (June 30)

Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway

Director: David Frankel

The Pitch: In a none-too-veiled cinema-a-clef, a fictional version of Vogue editor Anna Wintour makes life a living hell for her clueless, impressionable young editorial assistant, in an adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's bestselling beach read.

The Scouting Report: After playing Lindsay Lohan's mom in Prairie Home Companion, Streep now bounces her comic acting clinic off Hathaway, perhaps teaching them a few things that will pay benefits here and for years to come. The source material was thin, but in fashion, you can never be too thin, right?

WORDPLAY (July 7)

Cast: Will Shortz, Merl Reagle

Director: Patrick Creadon

The Pitch: Everything you always wanted to know about crossword puzzles, plus some play-along clue-solving, culminating in a national competition that offers suspense and contestants to root for.

The Scouting Report: Another documentary winner, in which the obsessive solvers will either seem normal to you or hopeless geeks. Either way, their stories fascinate, and Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart and Yankees pitcher Mike Messina all come out of the closet as avid puzzlers.

A SCANNER DARKLY (July 7)

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr.

Director: Richard Linklater

The Pitch: The tale of a drug-addicted undercover narc (Reeves) on the trail of his close friends, based on Philip K. Dick's dark (what else?) novel. Like Linklater's Waking Life, the actors were photographed traditionally, then animators painted in their images to create an eerily anthropomorphic cartoon.

The Scouting Report: The characters in Waking Life just sounded like they were stoned, so there's no telling how accessible the dialogue will be here when they are supposed to be stoned. Still, it sounds like Linklater has thrown down another challenge to us to try to follow him, so we might as well give it a try.

LADY IN THE WATER (July 21)

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeffrey Wright

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

The Pitch: Apparently Giamatti plays an apartment maintenance man who discovers a sea creature (Howard) in the building's swimming pool. Yeah, I know, it sounds like Splash!, but chances are it has a few more jolts and plot twists.

The Scouting Report: The only summer movie with as much secrecy surrounding it as The Da Vinci Code. It is getting harder and harder for Shyamalan to fool us, but the guy who gave us The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and even The Village has earned our attention.

NIGHT LISTENER (Aug. 4)

Cast: Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh

Director: Patrick Stettner

The Pitch: Based on a novel by Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City), this tale of a caring talk-radio host who struck up a telephone friendship with a young boy dying of AIDS, then is thwarted by the kid's unstable mother (Collette) from seeing him.

The Scouting Report: Williams has made a lot of bum career choices of late, but he is at his best in dramatic films that are somewhat creepy, which is what this sounds like. Unlike him, Collette has yet to deliver a bad performance and there is something intriguing about teaming them in a movie.

WORLD TRADE CENTER (Aug. 9)

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello

Director: Oliver Stone

The Pitch: The fact-based saga of the rescue of two heroic Port Authority policemen who responded to the emergency call on Sept. 11, 2001, then got trapped themselves in the rubble of the Twin Towers.

The Scouting Report: As straightforward and uplifting as that sounds, never doubt that Stone can find ways to inject political messages, let alone conspiracies, in any of his films. Following closely on the heels of United 93, this should test the limits of that tragic day's box office clout.

THE ILLUSIONIST (Aug. 18)

Cast: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel

Director: Neil Burger

The Pitch: A magician in Vienna at the turn-of-the-20th-century incurs the wrath of the crown prince and the interest of the prince's fiancée, so an official investigation is launched into the trickster's illusions.

The Scouting Report: As audiences will soon learn with Down in the Valley, Norton picks interesting, talent-stretching roles and this period meditation on reality versus illusion sounds like another one.

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP (Aug. 18)

Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Director: Michel Gondry

The Pitch: The star of The Motorcycle Diaries meets the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the latter gets inside the head of the former, as a graphic artist is held captive by his dreams.

The Scouting Report: After a pause to make Dave Chappelle's Block Party, Gondry sounds like he is back playing with the audience's heads with this whimsical journey into the subconscious. We may not completely understand Gondry's latest, but nor will we be bored by it.

SNAKES ON A PLANE (Aug. 18)

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Byron Lawson, Juliana Margulies

Director: David R. Ellis

The Pitch: As Indiana Jones would say, "Why did it have to be snakes!" Yes, just as the title advertises, this is the tale of an FBI agent (Jackson) escorting a crime witness on a plane, the same plane that a mob boss hopes to bring down by releasing — wait for it! — 400 poisonous vipers. Quick, push your call button!

The Scouting Report: Good or bad, this one wins the box office prize for the weekend it opens. It is such a goofy, seductive premise, combining two of our collective worst fears — snakes and confined spaces that can crash — that the screenplay almost writes itself.

The Dogs

Over the Hedge (May 19) — Animated suburban varmints, strictly kids' stuff.

The Omen (June 6) — Damien redux, just more violent and bloody.

Nacho Libre (June 16) — Jack Black as a priest-turned-wrestler. Bad career move.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (June 16) — More hot-rodding, but on the other side of the globe.

The Reaping (Aug. 11) — A Louisiana scarefest with a modern visitation by the 10 plagues of Exodus.

DOA: Dead or Alive (Aug. 25) — Jaime Pressly stuck in a videogame-inspired violence-fest.