The summer movie season is

upon us, and every week I find another great movie coming out that I want

to see. Here are my thoughts and recommendations on ones I have already

seen and a few I am waiting to see.

The second installment of "The

Mummy" seemed a little repetitive to me. I mean, this ground was

covered before and the second time around it was just a redo of all the

same devices. I kept feeling deja vu while I watched, sorta like a Jenna

Bush news story.

I guess I am getting to the

age where if I wanted to embrace a half-dead ancient, with dank, wrinkly

skin, I would just look in the mirror at 7 every morning. Actually, "The

Mummy" is pretty good, typical, summer popcorn fair, with lots of

surprises, mystery and special effects; sorta like Monica Kaufman's hairstyle.

A great, fun surprise in this

early summer season for me has been "The Animal." Rob Schneider,

the former "Copy Guy" from Saturday Night Live, plays a hapless

policeman (is there any other kind in the movies?) who, because of an

accident, has most of his body parts replaced with that of animals. It's

sort of "The Bionic Man" meets "Old McDonald." Colleen

Haskell from the first "Survivor" comes along for the ride and

crazy, silly fun ensues. I think this is the movie that Tom Cruise dropped

out of because of his breakup with Nicole Kidman.

A movie to avoid like the plague

is "Evolution." It never makes much sense to me. It has these

dinosaur-like creatures that are too easily killed by some hapless college

professors (are there ever any other kind?). It's comes across like bad

"Ghostbusters" only if you took out the comedy actors and substituted

FBI agents who worked on the Timothy McVeigh case. This movie was as boring

as the PGA without Tiger Woods.

If you are in the mood to see

a good old-fashioned musical in the vein of "The Sound of Music,"

only replacing the children with prostitutes, then "Moulin Rouge"

is the movie for you. Actually this PG-13 movie is pretty tame and lacks

any of the ribaldry, debauchery or nudity found in your typical 17-year-old's

summer vacation to Mexico or Panama City Beach.

I have never liked Nicole Kidman

much. For one, I have little patience for perfect eyes, skin and hair

and, two, I think she is the reason Tom Cruise dropped out of "The

Animal." Yet, I always like her movies and this one is especially

good, in a love story, VH1 video kind of way.

Thinking I was going to see

a movie about oyster harvesting, I wandered into "Pearl Harbor."

There were these low-flying airplanes zooming by with people scampering,

confused, in all different directions. Then I thought it must be a documentary

on the Delta Airlines story. The story actually follows a group of wisecracking

guys and girls trying to find love before they get shot down in their

prime. I thought it was "Friends" going out onto the streets

of New York City. Anyway, the movie was plenty entertaining with more

pain and suffering than a NASDAQ investment firm.

As far as movies that are yet

to come out, here are my one-sentence synopses:

"Tomb Raider": "The

Mummy" meets "The Matrix."

"Planet of the Apes":

New Jersey during a Soprano family reunion?

"Swordfish": John

Travolta tries to make it working for Red Lobster.

"Jurassic Park III":

From the viewpoint of the T-Rex, we taste like chicken.

"Dr Doolittle 2":

When good pets go bad and learn how to swear.

"A.I.": Steven Spielberg

makes a boy into a robot; the overmedicated Ritalin story.

There are many too many more

to mention, so I won't. That's it for now.

[Visit Billy Murphy on the

Internet at www.ebilly.net.]