This ripoff of Fatal Attraction (adding elements of The Temp, Disclosure and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) makes one long for the modest charms of Swimfan. The first half is a little snappier than you'd expect, but once Larter's villainous vixen turns out to be delusional rather than simply cunning, the film takes a big dip downhill, as sloppy storytelling (Larter drugs and seduces Elba and there are no plot repercussions) and character stupidity (a teen babysitter lets a stranger into the house; the gay assistant chats amiably with the crazy ex-co-worker; an unarmed Beyonce follows her nemesis into a darkened attic) run rampant. For the second half, you're just waiting around for a marathon catfight between two beautiful women, but at least that part doesn't disappoint. Dooley's score is an improvement over his When a Stranger Calls, but songs dominate the film to a distracting degree, which shouldn't be surprising when a popular singer is both the star and an executive producer.  

Travolta and Williams have to take care of two little boys. Okay, I have to see everything, but you don't have to. There's still time. Save yourselves.

Actress Farmiga follows Joshua with yet another Bad Seed thriller, this one produced by Joel Silver. The trailer isn't bad (and the presence of Farmiga and Sarsgaard definitely classes up the joint), but though Silver produced two of the all-time greatest action films (Die Hard, The Matrix), he still has yet to produce a genuinely good horror film (though I suspect his House on Haunted Hill, 13 Ghosts, Ghost Ship, Gothika and House of Wax have their fans), so my expectations are suitably lowered.

Foster and Quaid as amnesiac crew members on a spaceship menaced by something or other. The director's previous thriller, Case 39 with Renee Zellweger, still has no U.S. release date.

Two vacationing couples are menaced by psychos on Hawaii. Even writer-director Twohy's boxoffice flops (Below, The Chronicles of Riddick) are a lot of fun, so this could be good despite the unpromising premise.

With a cast like this, this second Steve-Martin-as-Clouseau vehicle should be a lot funnier, but for the most part it simply lays there on the screen, tolerable but largely unamusing.

The stars of The Rundown are reunited for a CGI feature about an astronaut who lands in the suburbs of an alien planet; a little like Battle for Terra but without the drama and the battle scenes. And with the stars of The Rundown. Did I mention that already?

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
COMPOSER: Randy Newman
WRITERS: Ron Clements, Ron Edwards, Greg Erb, John Musker, Jason Oremland
DIRECTORS: Ron Clements, John Musker
CAST: Terrence Howard, John Goodman, Keith David, Anika Noni Rose, Oprah Winfrey

The directors of Little Mermaid and Aladdin make their first Disney feature since Treasure Planet, this one set in Jazz Age New Orleans, which sounds like a great venue for composer Newman.

Canadian émigré Bullock pressures beleaguered assistant Reynolds to marry her so she can keep working in the U.S. There's virtually nothing original about this one (besides the notion of casting Bullock as an unlikeable boss) but it's still very funny, with snappy lines and first-rate work by its stars. Aaron Zigman is probably going to do a lot more romantic comedies after the success of this and Sex and the City, but Proposal is hardly his finest work (at least it's not the worst score of the year -- that honor is shared by Marcus De Vries' Easy Virtue and Mark Mancina's Imagine That).

Michael Mann brings us Depp as Dillinger and Bale as G-man Melvin Purvis in what looks like the best chance this summer has for grown-up entertainment. It's great to have Goldenthal scoring movies again – let's hope Mann gives him a freer hand than usual -- though Crudup seems a strange choice to play J. Edgar Hoover, at least without prosthetics.

Mutants with special powers do battle in futuristic Hong Kong. Sort of a cross between X-Men and Philip K. Dick's Ubik, but poorly structured (the characters seem to spend most of the film sitting around waiting for the action setpieces to start) and more annoying than exciting, despite the intriguing cast and cool locations.

RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN
COMPOSER: Trevor Rabin
WRITERS: Matt Lopez, Mark Bomback
DIRECTOR: Andy Fickman
CAST: Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, Carla Gugino, Ciaran Hinds

The 70s Disney mini-franchise reborn as one of the more violent kids films you'll ever see, a non-stop parade of explosions, fistfights and crashing cars, with the girl from Bridge to Terabithia and the boy from The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising as the friendly blond aliens, and The Rock in the Eddie Albert role. Rabin's score is energetic enough but it's no The Great Raid.

The Coens return with another dark comedy, this one with stage actor Stuhlbarg (The Pillowman) and TV veteran Kind (Mad About You, Spin City) about brothers in the 1960s.

Those of us old to remember the late '80s run of age-switching comedies (Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son, 18 Again) had good reason to dread this Zac Efron vehicle, but it really isn't bad, and Efron shows the skill and panache of a genuine movie star. Kent's score is uneven, supportive enough at times but trying too hard during the big comic setpieces (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past had something of the same problem). What he really needs is another Alexander Payne film, and fast.

The prospect of producer Joel Silver and director Guy Ritchie teaming up to make a revisionist Holmes film could understandably fill an audience member with dread, but their previous collaboration, Rocknrolla, was the least terrible film Ritchie has made so far, and the trailer for this one doesn't look bad. The choice of composer will either thrill or horrify film music fans, depending on which side of the Zimmer fence you reside. Wasn't it Dr. Watson who described Holmes' violin playing as sounding like "one hundred musicians playing the same note at the same time?"

A little boy gets ahold of a magical rock in this kids' fantasy-comedy from Rodriguez, so one hopes it will be closer to Spy Kids than to Shark Boy and Lava Girl in quality.

50s psychological thriller involving an escaped mental patient, and based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone). Oh, and it's directed by Scorsese, and you've probably heard of some of the cast members, which makes it a more high profile project than you might have expected from the first part of this paragraph. One would assume Howard Shore will score for the film (the trailer makes it definitely look like a film that will have a score), but he has not been officially announced as far as I can tell.

This true story of a journalist and his friendship with a brilliant, homeless, schizophrenic musician, from the director of Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, seemed like it was going to be one of the big Oscar contenders of 2008, until it got unexpectedly rescheduled to '09. Despite the mixed reviews, this is a surprisingly effective film, with a typically outstanding performance by Downey and a much more convincing portrayal of mental illness than A Beautiful Mind. Much of Marianelli's sparse score is based on classical pieces, so a third consecutive nomination for a Marianelli/Wright score is unlikely.

Brody and Polley play scientists who create a human-animal hybrid; from the director of Cube. I'd like to think that with two such talented actors on board it won't be crap, but then I remember that Robert DeNiro did Godsend...

The ridiculous lateness of my latest series of columns describing "upcoming" movies becomes particularly ridiculous in the case of Star Trek, as probably everyone who reads this site has already seen the film, at least once if not more. There's not too much to add except my own two cents: it's not my favorite Star Trek film -- I doubt they will ever top Wrath of Khan -- but it's one of the best, and probably the most visually gorgeous, with wonderfully colorful cinematography (apart from a few distractingly blurry close-ups) and spectacularly detailed visual effects. I still find Eric Bana a bit on the boring side (Ricardo Montalban, he ain't), and the principal storyline involving time travel and the destruction of Romulus is rather clunky, but the idea of using time travel to set up an alternate Star Trek reality is borderline genius. The casting of the regulars works beautifully -- even the normally wooden Karl Urban is effective, and Bruce Greenwood was an inspired choice for Pike -- and I really liked Giacchino’s main theme though his other themes are a little forgettable. Much as I would have enjoyed a pastiche of the Courage/Steiner/Kaplan TV music, Giacchino does a nice job of writing music suitable for the Star Trek universe without being overly derivative of his inspired predecessors.

STATE OF PLAY|
COMPOSER: Alex Heffes
WRITERS: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, Billy Ray
DIRECTOR: Kevin MacDonald
CAST: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel MacAdams, Helen Mirren

The acclaimed British miniseries is remade as a snappy American film, with a first-rate cast and a generally strong script (though I'm still a little confused by some of the who-knew-what-when). Director MacDonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland) brought along Heffes, his usual composer, and the score is effective enough but not especially memorable.

I don't know which is more offensive -- that someone would produce a remake of the cult classic '80s thriller, written by the great Donald Westlake and starring the matchless Terry Quinn, or that they'd hire the team who made the awful Prom Night redux to write and direct it. Either way, get ready for suck.

STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI
COMPOSER: Stephen Endelman
WRITER: Justin Marks
DIRECTOR: Andrzej Bartkowiak
CAST: Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein, Neal McDonough

There may be no surer thing in contemporary filmmaking than that a movie version of a video game simply cannot be good. Watchable, perhaps, like the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil films. But genuinely good? Hasn't happened yet, and this second feature film incarnation of the Street Fighter game(s) is particularly hobbled by Kreuk's remarkably uncharismatic lead performance and an especially embarrassing one by Klein. Following this and his work on David Mamet's Redbelt, Endelman risks being typecast as a martial arts composer.

Willis as a cop in a future world where people interact through robots, from the director and writers of Terminator 3 . Considering the premise and Willis' presence, I feel like I should have heard more about this one, but the director has a good track record (U-571, Breakdown), so my hopes are tentatively high.

NEXT TIME: This series finally ends, just in time for Christmas.