I still want to believe—does anyone else?

"I want to believe."

For years (from 1993 to 2002, to be exact), those simple words were the driving force in the life of FBI Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny)—and for many in the legions of die-hard fans of The X-Files (known as "X-Philes"), as well.

Now the question is, do they still want to believe?



Today, six years after the groundbreaking TV series ended its nine-year run about two seasons too late (Duchovny was MIA for almost all of the final season), Mulder and his partner (and lover?) Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are back on the big screen in The X-Files: I Want to Believe.

The Dark Knight

Referring to the The Dark Knight as a “comic book” or “superhero” movie seems to diminish its greatness. This is not light summer entertainment that will leave you when you leave the theater. Christopher Nolan’s sequel to his 2005 origin story Batman Begins is a dark, foreboding picture that grapples with very real issues of heroism and villainy, order and chaos.

The tragedy of Heath Ledger, whose maniacal performance as The Joker will become the stuff of movie legend, casts an even greater pall.

When an Oscar nomination comes early next year, cynics surely will say it is only due to Ledger’s death last January from an accidental prescription drug overdose. Don’t listen to them. His work here is mesmerizing, magnetic. You can’t keep your eyes off of him. He upstages everyone in a cast that includes the likes of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

One could spend hours poring over the wondrous sights, the monstrous creations of writer-director Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The Troll Market scene alone secures the film a place in movie history. Not since Luke Skywalker walked into the cantina in Star Wars has such unbridled imagination flowed from the screen.

It is here in the Troll Market, amid monsters of all shapes and sizes, that our hero, the red-skinned, cigar-smoking, kitten-loving demon called Hellboy (Ron Perlman), at last feels at home. For years, he and his sidekicks — his incendiary girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) and the aquatic empath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) — have been dutiful servants of the U.S. government’s Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, occasionally venturing out to save the day, then going back into hiding, before the public gets wise to their existence.

Hellboy just wants to live like everyone else. But when he finally gets the attention he craves, people stare at him. They taunt and throw things at him.

The year so far ...

2008 has reached the midway point, so I thought I'd give you my top 10 from what the year has had to offer so far (or, at least, the movies I've been able to see so far).

1. WALL•E
2. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
3. Iron Man
4. Cloverfield
5. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
6. The Strangers
7. The Incredible Hulk
8. In Bruges
9. George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
10. The Life Before Her Eyes

By a long shot, Speed Racer is at the bottom of the list.

This month sees the release of three of my most anticipated movies of the year, starting next Friday, July 11, with Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and continuing July 18 with The Dark Knight and July 25 with The X-Files: I Want to Believe.

Hancock

It’s Fourth of July weekend, and that can mean only one thing: A new Will Smith movie is opening.

It’s coincidence more than anything else that has so linked him to this particular time of year because his movies open big no matter when they are released. He is as close to a sure thing at the box office as we will ever see. Whether it’s science fiction (Independence Day, Men in Black), drama (The Pursuit of Happyness), romantic comedy (Hitch), mindless action (Bad Boys) or a post-apocalyptic zombie movie (I Am Legend), moviegoers will pay to see Will Smith.

With Hancock, he tackles the booming superhero genre—but not without a twist.

WALL•E

WALL•E, the latest film from the wizards at Pixar, is pure movie magic, a rare picture of wonder, hope, joy, love and social conscience.

While most of its animated contemporaries are busy trying to be hip with pop culture references, WALL•E, written and directed by Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo), has more in common with classic silent films.

WALL•E, who speaks in beeps that form only an occasional word, is a direct descendant of Charlie Chaplin’s “Tramp” character, possessed as he is of the same lovable, naive earnestness that made Chaplin such an enduring and endearing screen icon.

Wanted

Suddenly it’s feeling an awful lot like 1999. That was a pretty good year for movies, and two of the best were Fight Club and The Matrix. What would happen if you melded them together? Their offspring probably would be a little something like Wanted, a comic book-inspired film by Russian director Timur Bekmambetor (Night Watch, Day Watch).

James McAvoy, whose rise to fame has included roles in the Oscar-winning dramas Atonement and The Last King of Scotland, is Wesley Gibson, an accountant who spends his days in a cubicle, enduring the constant torment from his boss (Lorna Scott) and knowing his girlfriend (Kristen Hager) is cheating on him with his best friend (Chris Pratt). He introduces himself in narration dripping with apathy and cynicism. Appropriately, the Nine Inch Nails song “Every Day Is Exactly the Same” accompanies parts of the early sequence.

Get Smart

So often, when filmmakers adapt classic TV shows for the big screen, the result is a parody. The actors are winking at the camera, saying, “Remember this old show? Look how much cooler we are.”

But now we have Get Smart, based on the 1960s TV series created by comedy god Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. You don’t need to spoof your source material when it’s that good.

In the role originated by Don Adams, Steve Carell stars as Maxwell Smart, an analyst for the spy agency CONTROL. Max is good at his job, routinely presenting exhaustive reports that include foreign terrorists’ coffee preferences. He’s so good, in fact, that the CONTROL chief (Alan Arkin) refuses to promote him to field agent, even though he aced the exam that should get him the job. Field agents are people like the dashing superstar Agent 23 (Dwayne “Don’t-Call-Him-The-Rock” Johnson) and the stunning Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway).

The Incredible Hulk

Banish all thoughts of Hulk, Ang Lee's somber, laborious 2003 feature. The Incredible Hulk, which comes from an unlikely source (Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier), follows Iron Man as this year's second great comic book movie.

An opening montage—depicting the experiment gone wrong that causes Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) to transform into the massive, green-skinned Hulk when angered and the U.S. military's dogged pursuit of him—makes watching the earlier film unnecessary.

The action picks up several years later, with Banner in hiding in Brazil. Back home, Gen. Ross (William Hurt), the father of Banner's true love, Betty (Liv Tyler), has never given up the hunt. He wants to turn what happened to Banner into a weapon. An accident in a warehouse helps the general trace Banner to South America, to which he travels with a band of goons led by the over-eager Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth).

Reviews you won't see here

I have no intention of seeing or reviewing the following movies:
Sex and the City
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
The Love Guru