The Top Ten Family Movies for Summer 2008

Summer movies are a special treat. Families can get out of the hot sun and enjoy a couple of hours in air conditioned splendor, eating buttery popcorn and being transported to new and amazing worlds, following risky adventures they'd never dare participate in if it were real life. This summer, a host of movies will compete for our box office dollars, and for once, many of them sound like they might actually be good. This list is compiled based on my own personal preferences, though influenced by those of my sons. I'm not yet sure if we'll see all of these movies in theaters, but it's a good bet we'll see more than half of them.

Iron Man brings us the unlikely action hero of Robert Downey, Jr., as wealthy philanthropist Tony Stark, who is captured and is forced to build a weapon, but only pretends to do so. He builds an incredible suit of armor, dons it to break free from his captors, and then struggles to keep his secret from the public and his lady friend, while trying to save the world. Gwyneth Paltrow stars as his secretary/lady friend, Virginia "Pepper" Potts. Starts May 2, rated PG-13.

Speed Racer is an incredible cartoon come to life out of the creative minds responsible for the Matrix movies. It is a combination action-packed video game and high-speed roller coaster containing only a few scenes that stop and give you time to catch your breath. Set in a brilliant, swirling world of locomotion that is both completely unreal and still full of the values most important to us, this movie is a vivid and fast-moving celebration of family values and good triumphing over evil. They've even got the color scheme right: the good guy wears white and drives a white car (he even drinks milk to celebrate winning the race). The bad guys are dark, ugly and have bad teeth. You have to suspend your sense of reality, because they never explain why the family has a chimp living with them, and the races are much more like video games than real life. This movie takes us completely out of our world and sets us free to just enjoy the bright, rich visual candy as we follow along on an adventure that spans several continents and three climate changes, with always something new to see in the next scene. Starting May 9, rated PG.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is the second in the series of movies based on the popular books by C.S. Lewis. Bringing back the 4 charming actors who played the Pevensie children in the first movie, and introducing Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian, this story is set hundreds of years later, by Narnian timeline, than the first movie. The Pevensies have been back in the real world and have grown a year older, when they suddenly return to a Narnia that looks nothing like they remember it. This time there are two villains, the evil King Miraz and the White Witch who still has some nasty tricks up her sleeve after being defeated in the first movie. Andrew Adamson returns as director, and the special effects are sure to be as good or better than the first movie. Aslan returns May 16, rated PG.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may be the movie that tells us what we've been dying to know since 1981 - where exactly is Ark of the Covenant stored and will we ever see it again? There is a scene in this movie with Indy, a speeding army Jeep, and a warehouse full of wooden crates that looks awfully familiar. We'll have to wait and see if it's the same one, but we're sure to enjoy the ride no matter where it takes us. There is a legend that a crystal skull has disappeared, and who ever returns it will have control of its power. Karen Allen reprises her role as Marion Ravenwood, but with the addition of Cate Blanchett, who will end up with Jones? With his trademark hat and whip, he's still handsome and sexy after all these years. Opens May 23. Rated PG-13.

Kung Fu Panda is an animated comedy about an unlikely hero who is chosen to fulfill an ancient prophecy to save the world from the evil snow leopard, Tai Lung. Have you noticed there are a lot of saving-the-world movies this summer? Po, the pudgy dragon warrior, undergoes Kung Fu training when his greatest desire seems to be his next meal. He is accompanied by a host of other animals who are more adept at the art of Kung Fu than Po. Pandamonium breaks out June 6. Rated PG.

The Incredible Hulk is another tale of a larger-than-life character saving the world from evil this summer. David Banner again struggles between finding a cure for the condition that turns him into the Hulk and using his powers to fight evil. The evil this time is someone known as The Abomination, reputed to be even stronger than the Hulk. But, well, I might be wrong here, but judging from the trailer, it looks like the Hulk is bigger this time, too. As always, the military are also trying to harness the Hulk's power, and all he wants to do is lead a quiet, normal life. Starts June 13. Not yet rated.

Get Smart. I remember watching this on TV as a kid. This time, the bad guys from KAOS have a load of nukes and they're ready to achieve world domination. Only Maxwell Smart, the bumbling Control agent, and his lovely sidekick, Agent 99, can stop them. This movie is likely to be filled with slapstick physical humor and jokes about how intelligent Smart is - not! The mission gets under way on June 20. Rated PG-13.

Pixar's Wall-E is likely to be the surprise blockbuster of the summer. Or maybe not such a surprise, since Pixar movies have all been very popular and this one has the winning combination of a lovable character and an imaginative setting that's sure to appeal to adults and children alike. Wall-E the robot is left to clean up planet earth when we abandon it sometime in the future, having filled it with so much garbage it's not fit to live in anymore. Somehow an alien spaceship lands, bringing the svelt robot EVE to earth, and Wall-E quickly falls in love. EVE then goes back to space and Wall-E hitchhikes on her ship, which takes him to a space station called AXIOM. Wall-E is propelled on an inter-galactic adventure filled with marvelous computer-generated animation, a mixture of our old garbage and futuristic space ships, creating a humorous yet realistic setting for a great summer family movie. Blasts off June 27, not yet rated, though Pixar movies are all either G or PG.

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D is not really a remake, so much as a retelling of the classic Jules Verne tale. Set in modern times, it is the tale of an ambitious but unconventional professor who makes a startling discovery and sets out to explore the setting of the classic book, attempting to discover if it was not really fiction after all. New Line Cinema and Walden Media team up to bring us a family adventure full of eye-catching special effects. They say it's digital 3D, but I'm unclear whether that means we have to wear 3D glasses or not. The journey begins July 11. Not yet rated.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - wait a minute, didn't this movie already come out? The Star Wars saga is finished, right? Wrong. First, there was the original trilogy: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, otherwise known as Episodes IV, V and VI. Then there were Episodes I, II and III: The Phantom Menace, The Attack of the Clones, and The Revenge of the Sith. At the end of Episode II, Yoda says, "Begun the Clone Wars have." Yet we don't learn much about these wars in Episode III. This new movie, done in an animated style that is altogether new, takes place in the time period between Episodes II and III and fill us in on some of the details we missed. We've been wondering about the Clone Wars since we learned, in Episode IV, that Luke's father fought in them, but other than seeing how the Clone army was created and hearing Yoda's prophetic and ungrammatical pronouncement, we have been told little about them. Now we learn that Anakin had a secret apprentice, Jabba the Hutt has a son, and we get to hear more very bad grammar from Yoda. The rich and futuristic style of animation fits very well with the Star Wars universe and still maintains the sense that we are visiting real planets with long histories waiting to be explored. The movie arrives in theaters on August 15 and will be followed up by an animated TV series airing on the Cartoon Network and TNT this Fall. Rated PG.