Play it again

Hollywood banks on the sequel

By Peter Keough

The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor required absolute secrecy to succeed. Not so the $180 million Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer extravanganza Pearl Harbor (opens May 25). It’s the most hyped film since Titanic, which it in many other ways suspiciously resembles; probably the only people who haven’t heard about it are those mythical Japanese Imperial soldiers holed up on Pacific islands who still don’t know the war is over. And like the American military industŸial juggernaut that the raid stirred to life, this movie looks unbeatable. It’s got the doomsday special effects of the previous Bay/Bruckheimer blockbuster, Armageddon, plus Ben Affleck in a misty-eyed romance that presumably doesn’t involve animal crackers, and the crypto-jingoist war worship of a Saving Private Ryan.

Can Hollywood, like the US fleet, survive this onslaught and salvage a decent summer from the wreckage? Perhaps by returning to the source of all summer blockbusters, Steven Spielberg, who pretty much started this orgiastic rite of rank commercialism, cheap thrills, and occasional genius back in 1975 with Jaws. He returns in 2001 — an appropriate date — with A.I. Artificial Intelligence (opens June 29), a project that his old friend Stanley Kubrick had been working on until his death, in 1999. In a dystopic future, environmental catastrophes like molten polar icecaps and universal flooding have compelled humanity to develop an arti cial intelligence system that somehow includes Jude Law as a sex toy and Haley Joel Osment as an android who wants to become a real boy. I may not see dead people, but I do see Pinocchio, Waterworld, and, most terrifying, Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man. On the plus side, there is the Kubrick factor and the credibility of sci-fi visionary Brian Aldiss, who penned the original story on which the film is based.

The next best thing, perhaps, to a genuine Spielberg summer blockbuster is a sequel to one. Hence Jurassic Park 3 (opens July 18). Directed by Joe Johnston, who has turned out the occasional gem like Honey I Shrunk the Kids and October Sky, and serving up consummate character actor William H. Macy as a potential appetizer, this otherwise seems a slavish exercise in formula as Sam Neill and Laura Dern end up back on the island of dweeb-devouring digital dinosaurs.

Not very original? Well, get used to it. This summer will be seeing its share of reruns. There’s Dr. Dolittle 2 (June 22), a sequel to a remake, in which Eddie Murphy tries to talk an endangered bear specimen into mating; Steve Carr (Next Friday) directs. There’s Scary Movie 2 áJuly 6), a sequel to a rehash in which Keenen Ivory Wayans persuades brothers Shawn and Marlon to humiliate themselves in further scatological lampoonings of the teen/slasher genre. Yesterday’s baked goods go back on sale in American Pie 2 (August 10), as Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari, Tara Reid, and the rest are college bound and still furtively masturbating; James B. Rogers (Say It Isn’t So) directs. Then there are the just plain sequels: Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker return to take on a Hong Kong triad in Rush Hour 2 (August 3). And, of course, the inevitable Jason X (August 17).

You’ve heard of straight-to-video? Here are some that are straight-from-video. Simon West (Con Air) adapts the vastly popular game Tomb Raider (June 15) for the big screen, with Oscar winner Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, the babelicious Indiana Jones clone, and her real-life dad Jon Voight, fresh from enacting Franklin Roosevelt in Pearl Harbor, as her movie dad, the donnish Lord Hershingly. Also on leave from Pearl Harbor is Alec Baldwin, who takes time off from the Jimmy Doolittle raid on Tokyo to consort with the enemy in Final Fantasy: The Spirits . . . (July 13). He adds his voice to those of Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames in Hironobo Sakaguchi’s animated adaptation of the Japanese video game in which humans fight to survive in the inhospitable year 2065.

Not all this summer’s movies are sequels or adaptations of video games. Some are remakes of old movies or restorations and re-releases. Movies from the past about the future are a big commodity, so John McTiernan (The Thomas Crown Affair) is resurrecting Norman Jewison’s 1975 sci-fi flop Rollerball (August 17). It’s the story of a society run by corporations in which the title blood sport keeps the masses at bay; with Chris Klein, Jean Reno, and LL Cool J, it sounds like a futuristic Gladiator with a nod to the late XFL. More promising perhaps is Tim Burton’s update of Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 classic Planet of the Apes (July 27), in which an errant astronaut finds himself stranded on a world dominated by chimps and gorillas; Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, and Helena Bonham Carter star.

Why remake a movie if it can be restored? That’s the case with Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Director’s Cut (June 15), which should serve as a corrective to any who thought A Knight’s Tale had comedic value. Franc Roddam’s 1979 adaptation of the Who’s rock opera Quadrophenia (June 22) refurbishes its tale of mods and rockers and such highlights as the film debut of Sting. And Francis Coppola takes one more shot at getting it right in Apocalypse Now Redux (August 17); 53 minutes longer than the 1979 version, it probably still ends up with a bald Marlon Brando muttering, “The horror! The horror!”

APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX: Francis Coppola’s 1979 epic has put on 53 minutes.

So with all these re-releases going on, you’d assume that a new look at Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey would be in order. Afraid not — you’ll have to be satisfied with A.I., or perhaps Ivan Reitman’s sardonic riff on the subject of interplanetary destinies, Evolution (June 8), in which David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, and Orlando Jones star as scientists trying to comprehend and contain a startling alien life form. Or maybe John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars (August 24), in which a simple cops-and-robbers story set on a future Mars colony turns into a battle for the survival of the species. Ice Cube and Natasha Henstridge flesh out the cast.

To judge from this summer’s movies, the future of humanity looks grim. The future of film, however, seems to be computer animation. Disney re-creates Atlantis: The Lost Empire (June 15) through the magic of CGI, providing a setting for another Indiana Jones–like adventure featuring the voices of Michael J. Fox, James Garner, and Leonard Nimoy; Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (Beauty and the Beast) direct. The title says it all in Larry Guterman’s Cats and Dogs (July 6), a fantasy about the secret war being waged between the two species — who play themselves with a little help from digital enhancement and the voices of Susan Sarandon, Tobey Maguire, and Michael Clarke Duncan. And it was only a matter of time before the Farrelly Brothers took their twisted imaginations to the anything-goes realm of state-of-the-art animation, making a mockery of the old sci- chestnut Fantastic Voyage with Osmosis Jones (August 10), in which Chris Rock plays the white blood cell of the title struggling to save a stricken Bill Murray from a virulent virus.

Despite the prevalence of remakes, sequels, re-releases, and animation this summer, there still seems to be room for original films featuring human beings made by auteurs. The renaissance in Asian films epitomized by last year’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon continues with Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s The Road Home (June 8), a simple tale of true love starring Tiger’s high-flying heroine Zhang Ziyi. Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung reprises the visually rapturous style of his Scent of Green Papaya with The Vertical Ray of the Sun (July 13), a story of three sisters in present day Hanoi. Iconoclastic Japanese director Nagisa Oshima returns with Taboo (June 15), a period tale of homoerotic intrigue set among the samurai class and starring Takeshi “Beat” Kitano. And Kitano himself directs and stars in Brother (July 20), in which a yakuza emigrates to LA and tries to take over the local drug scene.

Not all the auteurs are from Asia. From Denmark comes the latest Dogme 95 exercise, Kristian Levring’s The King Is Alive (June 8), in which a group of tourists stranded in the desert re-enact King Lear to pass the time. Miles Anderson, Romane Bohringer, and Bruce Davison star. From the Czech Republic comes Jan Hrebejk’s Divided We Fall (June 22), in which a childless couple during World War II offer refuge, and then some, to a Jew fleeing the Nazis. And from Germany comes Tom Tykwer’s The Princess and the Warrior (July 6), a twisted love story involving a psychiatric nurse and a thief.

Neither are all the auteuristic and artistic efforts necessarily subtitled. Baz Luhrmann follows up his Bardic brouhaha Romeo + Juliet with Moulin Rouge (June 1), in which a post-Cruise Nicole Kidman seeks consolation with Ewan McGregor in the bohemian demi-monde of turn-of-the-century Paris; John Leguizamo comes up short as Toulouse Lautrec. In Bride of the Wind (June 8), Bruce Beresford delves into the fascination of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel, who in addition to being the bride of the wind and the title luminaries had Klimt and Kokoschka on her string; Sarah Wynter, Jonathan Pryce, and Vincent Perez star. And John Madden follows up his Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love with Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (August 17), another tale of star-crossed lovers, this time an Italian captain and a Greek woman on an Axis-occupied island during World War II. Based on the novel by Louis De Bernières, it stars Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz.

MOULIN ROUGE: a post-Cruise Nicole Kidman is comforted by Ewan McGregor.

American independent filmmakers will be making their mark as well. John Singleton returns to the ’hood with Baby Boy (June 29), a tale of the title 20-year-old who has two kids, two felony convictions, and a thing about his mother. Ving Rhames and Omar Gooding star. Unfazed by the rough treatment accorded Dogma, Kevin Smith retaliates with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (August 10), the final installment of his New Jersey trilogy. And then, of course, there’s the inevitable Woody Allen comedy. A riff on noirs like Double Indemnity, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (August 10) features Allen as a 1940s insurance investigator tempted and beleaguered by the likes of Helen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd, and Charlize Theron.

It all starts with the bombs falling in Pearl Harbor. Can we survive it? Those who do will be rewarded with Heaven (September 14), the first of a posthumous trilogy written by the late Krzysztof Kie´slowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi, it’s the story of a woman who falls in love with the cop who arrested her. Who knows — it might give you reason to believe in life after summer movies.

Gerald Peary can be reached at gpeary@world.std.com.