SUMMER SNEAKS : The Sweaty Season : As usual, summer is heavy on action. But there are also films for kids, cyberpunks and lovers. And we’re sure you can’t wait to see that movie with <i> Water</i> in the title.

One way or another, the biggest story of the imminent summer movie season--and of the year, perhaps of the decade, maybe since Moses lost his sandals--will be the fate of Universal’s “Waterworld.” At a production cost now estimated at $170 million to $200 million, the futuristic adventure will have to sell more tickets than “Forrest Gump” or “The Lion King” just to break even.

Given its troubled production history, the three straight disappointments of its star, Kevin Costner, and its competition in a summer well stocked with action films, the chances of “Waterworld” becoming one of the three or four biggest hits in history are roughly the same as those of Madonna recovering her modesty.

Still, however things go for “Waterworld,” moviegoers preparing to spend upward of $2 billion on admission tickets this summer will have plenty to choose from in a lineup that is striking for its variety and balance. A year ago, there were a disproportionate number of comedies and children’s adventure movies on the schedule and only half a dozen traditional summer action films. Of romance and dramas, there were almost none.

This year, there are more than a dozen each of action films and dramas, another 10 films that are either pure romance or romantic comedy and enough promising kid stuff to keep the family sedan on the road through Labor Day. The kids’ movies include half a dozen with cute animals, one with a cute ghost, two spun from the favorite TV and video game heroes of young boys and two more that will make every girl in America feel like a princess for a day.

This summer will also continue the harvest of post-”Sleepless in Seattle” sentimental love stories but in ways that--to the certain consternation of the new GOP-religious right combine--expand the emotional playing field to include most ages and all known sexual preferences. And the season will either end or compound American women’s infatuation with “Four Weddings and a Funeral” star Hugh Grant, who stars in two upcoming movies.

But whether the summer of ’95 matches the record-breaking box-office take of ’94 depends mostly on the performances of the Big Gulps, the movies that cost the most to make and figure to make the most. There could be a “Forrest Gump” sleeping somewhere in the pack (there are more than 50 films scheduled for wide release and 40 or so specialty films), but a relative handful of high-profile pictures should suck up most of the business.

From the surest bets down, here’s an even dozen of likely winners:

1--Batman Forever. The third and reportedly most whimsical episode in the “Batman” series gets a new Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer in for Michael Keaton), with a side order of Robin (Chris O’Donnell) and two new villains (superhot Jim Carrey as the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face).

2--Pocahontas. All they’d have to do is open the doors and say, “A new Disney animated musical!” and staff the cash registers. Instead, they’re opening the film with a colossal freebie for 100,000 or so in New York’s Central Park and threatening to make everyone forget “The Lion King” by the Fourth of July.

3--Die Hard With a Vengeance. They could have picked a better time for a story about blowing up buildings in an American city, but that’s what the “Die Hard” movies do , and their millions of fans--many of whom would miss a militia meeting to catch the opening--aren’t likely to connect it to anything in real life.

4--Crimson Tide. The perfect popcorn movie (which gave the season an early launch on Friday) stars Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman as feuding commanding officers aboard a U.S. submarine about to launch the first nuclear strike of World War Apocalypse. “Crimson Tide,” as one studio executive said, “is this summer’s Harrison Ford movie.”

5--Casper. If quality control at Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment could make kids believe in dinosaurs, imagine what they can do with Casper, Harvey Comics’ friendly ghost. Universal’s “The Flintstones” did most of the family business until “The Lion King” came along last summer, and “Casper,” which opens May 26, will have a clear track for a month before “Pocahontas.”

6--Apollo 13. Ron Howard has the world’s top box-office star in Tom Hanks and one of American history’s greatest pioneer adventures to tell. Sounds like a sure thing until you recall the mess he made of a similar parlay--Tom Cruise and the Oklahoma Land Rush--in “Far and Away.”

7--Waterworld. Imagine what you could buy with $200 million. A 747, Michael Ovitz’s friendship, Demi Moore for 200 nights. In turning over the store to a now-dubious marquee name and a production schedule that called for weeks on an artificial island in the middle of the Pacific, Universal may have bought this year’s biggest headache.

8--First Knight. “Ghost” director Jerry Zucker returns to romance with another take on the Arthurian legend, with silver fox Sean Connery as King Arthur, hot newcomer Julia Ormond as Guinevere and Richard Gere, for some reason, as Sir Lancelot.

9--The Bridges of Madison County. Romance is back, and if sales of Robert James Waller’s overripe novel about an Iowa farm wife’s life-changing affair with a National Geographic photographer are any indication, Clint Eastwood’s adaptation (starring himself and Meryl Streep) could be the sleeper weepie of the year.

10--Under Siege 2. A $60-million sequel starring Steven Seagal, whom some people like.

11--Congo. From the trailer showing scientists venturing into an uncharted African jungle inhabited by what appear to be angry NFL linemen in gorilla suits, maybe it should have been called “King Congo.” Anyway, you can’t go far wrong adapting a novel by Michael Crichton (“Jurassic Park”).

12--Judge Dredd. Action. Stallone. Works every time.

*

That the list is a little top-heavy in action films comes as no surprise. Hollywood has been doing its summer banking with science fiction, fantasy, adventure and thrillers for decades. The surprise here is in the mix. There are three period action films (the romantic adventures “First Knight” and “Braveheart,” Mel Gibson’s 13th-Century Scottish costume drama, and Walter Hill’s Western “Wild Bill”), one thriller aboard a submarine (“Crimson Tide”) and another on a train (“Under Siege 2”), three horror films (“Lord of Illusions,” “Hellraiser IV” and “Species”) and just one that is being sold on its heavy explosives (“Die Hard With a Vengeance”).

The big trend in action films now is the blending of the traditional genres with computer technology. Not what the technology can do for films--computer animation, optical effects and so forth--but the technology itself. (Due, no doubt, to the fact that screenwriters writing on computers can procrastinate by surfing the Internet and charging the time to research.)

In “Virtuosity,” Denzel Washington plays an L.A. cop in the near-future who has to hunt down a killer who escapes from virtual reality into real reality (sort of). In “Johnny Mnemonic,” Keanu Reeves plays a 21st-Century courier whose brain chip overloads in the midst of an Earth-threatening crisis. And in “Hackers,” which is actually described as a “cyberpunk thriller,” a group of computer nerds starts fooling around on the Net and gets caught up in industrial espionage.

Perhaps the most imaginative of the summer’s fantasies is “Species.” Remember when we sent that friendly note into outer space, hoping it would be found by intelligent beings? Well, they found it--and have sent back a message of their own, which includes DNA instructions for the conception of a half-human, half-alien child. The human half grows up to be a babe, the alien half a bitch.

Some of the most promising action films are for kids. ( For more on the summer’s children’s films, see Page 14. ) “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie,” based on the popular TV series, could become as hot as “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and “Mortal Kombat” brings to the screen the Video Age’s most successful game. There is also Frank Oz’s “The Indian in the Cupboard,” adapted from Lynne Reid Banks’ novel about a 9-year-old boy who is given a magic box that turns innocuous plastic toys--an Indian, an armed cowboy--into warring house pets.

*

As for romance, the range and variety include “Forget Paris,” Billy Crystal’s ode to marriage and mature love, and such serious love stories as “Mad Love” (about a high school student who falls in love with a manic-depressive), “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love” (about the love between two teen-age girls) and “Jeffrey” (adapted from Paul Rudnick’s play about a gay man’s search for identity).

In the new tradition of uplifting summer transvestite fare (following in the chiffon jet stream of last year’s “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”) comes “Wigstock: The Movie,” in which RuPaul and Deee-lite take us inside the annual transvestite festival in New York’s East Village.

And, finally, for those into self-love, there’s “Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde,” about a guy who drinks a secret potion that unleashes the beautiful woman in him.

Something for everybody.

* BEYOND SNEAKS . . . AN INDEX

Yes, there’s more to life--and this issue--than movies. For a guide to the week’s highlights in theater, performing arts, art, pop and jazz, see Page 16.