Old Faithful

If the summer movie season is our annual time for escapism, last summer's audiences escaped most often with the likes of The Hulk, Terminator 3, and The Matrix Reloaded. Those titles, respectively, ended with a homeless and penniless hero, the end of life on earth as we know it, and our messianic figure sent into a coma. Turn on CNN, and you can get your apocalyptic images for the price of basic cable -- who needs it at the multiplex as well?

Of course, it takes about two years for the average movie to go from concept to completion, which perhaps is why this summer -- two-plus years removed from 9-11 -- our movies skew heavily toward nostalgia. The attacks made many people long for simpler, safer times, and Hollywood is delivering; in the coming months, the retro machine will be cranked up to virtually every decade from the past century: from a '30s-era nod to Cole Porter (De-Lovely) to an adaptation of a classic '50s novel (I, Robot), and from a remake of a '60s thriller (The Manchurian Candidate) to the film debut of an '80s cartoon icon (Garfield).

The following pages preview dozens of upcoming summer movies, from projected blockbusters sure to be accompanied by Happy Meal tie-ins to obscure documentaries that wield considerable promise. All dates are subject to change, and inevitably, some of them will. -- Luke Y. Thompson

JUNE

Around the World in 80 Days

Starring: Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Cécile De France, Jim Broadbent

Director: Frank Coraci

Writers: David Goldstein, David Benullo, Michael Weiss . . . and Jules Verne

Premise: Chan and Coogan take to the skies in the umpteenth remake of this classic novel.

Outlook: Looks like good old-fashioned fun -- if any market for such a risk still exists. Coogan (star of British TV hit I'm Alan Partridge) and Chan are both geniuses of their craft, and the stunt casting -- including the Gropenator as a polygamist in a fugged-up wig -- seems amusing. In the case of director Coraci (The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy), this appears to be evidence that if you survive Adam Sandler, you are allowed to make a cool movie.

(Opens June 16)

Baadasssss!

Starring: Mario Van Peebles, Nia Long, David Alan Grier, Ossie Davis

Director: Mario Van Peebles

Writers: Mario Van Peebles, Dennis Haggerty

Premise: Playing Melvin, his daddy, Mario dramatizes the trials and tribulations surrounding the making of the 1971 hit Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

Outlook: Why the five S's? The MPAA won't allow the word "ass" in a title. Wouldn't be a bad idea to release Papa Van Peebles's original movie in a new deluxe DVD format to help get the word out. If Mario can sell it to the black youth audience, he'll have a hit.

(Opens June 25)

The Chronicles of Riddick

Starring: Vin Diesel, Colm Feore, Alexa Davelos, Judi Dench

Writer/Director: David Twohy

Premise: That bald brute from the supercool Pitch Black returns, perchance to save the universe.

Outlook: Looks like a very heavy-handed allegory for the European Crusades, writ science-fictiony in the 26th century. Dench may be seeing Alec Guinness potential as the mystical guide of the nice-guy Elementals, whom Richard "Dick" B. Riddick (Diesel) assists in battling the probably-not-nice Necromongers, led by Feore. Pitch Black was an Alien knockoff done right, but this may be the beginning of an action trilogy done silly.

(Opens June 11)

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Starring: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, Rip Torn

Writer/Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber (the short film/commercial "Terry Tate, Office Linebacker")

Premise: Another month, another Stiller-in-a-wig movie. Does the man never sleep? Anyhow, the film's title says it all, except that the movie isn't really based on a true story.

Outlook: Didn't that one episode of South Park already exhaust every possible gag to be wrung from the notion of a dodgeball world championship? Here's a bold prediction: Dollars to donuts there'll be more than one scene of a man getting hit in the crotch.

(Opens June 18)

Garfield

Starring: Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Steven Tobolowsky, the voice of Bill Murray

Director: Peter Hewitt

Writers: Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow (the Cheaper by the Dozen remake)

Premise: The fat cat popularized in the '80s finally hits the CG big time.

Outlook: Fat, obnoxious comic-strip creature eats and complains constantly, annoys bachelor and dog -- this could just as well be the Cathy movie. Director Hewitt previously helmed the heartwarming British comedy Thunderpants, about a kid who farts a lot, which mysteriously remains unreleased on our prim shores.

(Opens June 11)

The Notebook

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Gena Rowlands, James Garner

Writer/Director: Nick Cassavetes

Premise: Following an ill-fated move into mainstream Hollywood thrillers with John Q. , Nick Cassavetes returns to the stuff that he and his late father have always been good at: quirky, character-based romance starring Gena Rowlands.