Hollywood Operatives

By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN

May 5, 2002 12 AM PT

For months now, this Hollywood vacation season has been billed as the summer of the Franchise Movie.

The sequels are coming fast and furious, with second installments of “Men in Black,” “Stuart Little” and “Spy Kids”; a third Mike Myers spy spoof (“Austin Powers in Goldmember”); a fourth Jack Ryan thriller (“Sum of All Fears”); and a fifth “Star Wars” film, known as “Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones.” (It’s the second prequel following two sequels, if you want to get technical about it.)

And that’s not even counting movies inspired by other movies, such as “XXX,” the unofficial sequel to “The Fast and the Furious”; an update of Frank Capra’s “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” known now simply as “Mr. Deeds,” with Adam Sandler, if you can imagine, in the Gary Cooper role; plus big-screen versions of TV shows (“Scooby-Doo,” “Jackass” and “Crocodile Hunter”), comic books (“Spider-Man” opened Friday) and theme-park attractions, such as Disney’s “The Country Bears.” If you’re older than 25, this sounds like a pretty good time to take a three-month summer vacation from moviegoing altogether, although, thankfully, a few adult enticements will also be in theaters, including “Insomnia,” a cerebral thriller from “Memento” director Christopher Nolan that stars Al Pacino and Robin Williams; “Road to Perdition,” a moody tale from “American Beauty” director Sam Mendes that features Tom Hanks as a Depression-era hit man and Paul Newman as a mob boss; “Unfaithful,” a sexy thriller about adultery from director Adrian Lyne; and “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,” an intergenerational family saga starring Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd and Ellen Burstyn.

But for all the talk of how this summer represents a new wave in the corporatization of Hollywood filmmaking, I see something different and much more old-fashioned happening. The real spiritual father of this season’s sci-fi, special-effects movies isn’t Luke Skywalker or the mechanical shark from “Jaws.” The real Big Daddy of 2002 is James Bond. The stars of this summer, be they secret agent, undercover operative or impossibly cool superhero, are nearly all fresh twists on the venerable Bond template.

“XXX,” due Aug. 2, was consciously conceived as an extreme-sports-style Bond franchise, with Vin Diesel as a gruff secret agent who does gravity-defying stunts on a motocross freestyle bike the way Sean Connery used to maneuver his sports cars.

“Austin Powers in Goldmember” (July 26) is the ultimate Bond takeoff, complete with tweedy Brit accents, curvaceous supermodels and a campy villain, Dr. Evil, who was gunning for world domination long before George W. Bush took aim at his “axis of evil.”

That’s just the beginning: Bond goes hip-hop in “Bad Company,” due June 7, in which Chris Rock plays a ghetto hustler-turned-CIA covert operative in a film full of Bond touches, including Anthony Hopkins as the upper-crust, MI5-style handler. Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report,” due June 21, stars Tom Cruise as a “Mission: Impossible”-meets-James Bond super cop of the future who jets around after devious criminals. “Undercover Brother,” due May 31, is an “Austin Powers Goes to Harlem” blaxploitation Bond spoof with Eddie Griffin as a secret agent whose eight-track car stereo shoots missiles.

Then there’s a Tom Clancy thriller, “The Sum of All Fears” (May 31), and a Robert Ludlum spy drama, “The Bourne Identity” (June 14), whose Cold War showdowns and action-hero daredevilry owe a big debt to 007-style super-sleuthery and pyrotechnics. The list goes on: When Jennifer Lopez slips on her Navy Seal black tights and practices her deadly array of kick-boxing moves in “Enough,” due May 24, she looks for all the world like a slinky Bond temptress right out of “Thunderball.”

So why this obsession with neo-007-ism? Sweeping conclusions are probably not in order. Most movie trends are the product of fluke and happenstance. But you could argue that summer movies are the ultimate altar for Bond worship. If you’re making movies aimed at teenage boys--far and away the most active summer moviegoer--a super spy with lots of hip, high-tech gear, played for real or for laughs, is the ideal adolescent fantasy hero. It also offers filmmakers the opportunity to use the full range of their thrill-ride arsenal, arming characters with futuristic gadgetry, mind-blowing special effects and lots--and lots--of cool cars, rockets and explosions.

So what are the most hotly anticipated movies of the summer? Instead of asking the usual suspects, movie industry executives, I went right to the target audience: a group of teen fans. I showed them a dozen trailers for upcoming movies, and asked them to discuss and rate them in terms of how much the trailers made them want to see the films. We chose films that would potentially appeal, one way or another, to the teen summer audience--I didn’t think the latest Merchant-Ivory movie would get this group’s heart pumping--although we did include some more adult-oriented films, including “The Sum of All Fears” and M. Night Shyamalan’s extraterrestrial thriller “Signs.”

It was a very informal focus group, made up of four teenage boys and two girls, all friends of Gabe, my 15-year-old neighbor. These kids--I call them my Summer Movie Posse--are incredibly opinionated and media savvy, and go to a movie nearly every week in the summer, which is why studios make so many films from their favorite genres--special-effects thrillers and lowbrow comedies.

Despite their fondness for splashy special effects, the most eagerly anticipated movie (among girls and boys) was the film that cost the least money to make and has no real stars: “Jackass: The Movie,” a film-length version of the legendarily lowbrow MTV show devoted to stupid and dangerous stunts. The trailer only ran 30 seconds, half of which was devoted to a cautionary scroll warning not to imitate any of the stunts, which got almost as big a laugh as the stunts themselves. The next three top-rated trailers, ranking No. 2 through No. 4, all were movies with African American stars--Chris Rock, Eddie Griffin and Will Smith (“Men in Black II”).

Tom Cruise didn’t go over big in “Minority Report”--the kids thought the trailer looked too much like a “Mission: Impossible” knockoff. “The Sum of All Fears” star Ben Affleck also got a lukewarm reaction. And Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr., co-stars of “Scooby-Doo,” were practically hooted off the screen.

The big favorites were “XXX’s” Vin Diesel, clearly the role model of the moment for 15-year-old boys, and older actors like “Sum of All Fears” co-star Morgan Freeman and “Bad Company” co-star Anthony Hopkins, who both have near-mythic stature with the Movie Posse.

There’s no guarantee that these opinions will be an accurate prognostication of box office success. But four of the top five trailers chosen by last year’s Movie Posse turned out to be $100-million hits (“American Pie 2,” “Pearl Harbor,” “The Fast and the Furious” and “The Mummy Returns” ). On the other hand, last year’s lowest-rated trailer was “Shrek,” which was a blockbuster.

Here are some highlights from our screening:

“Jackass.” Gabe: “Watching people destroy themselves is so funny that a movie with 90 minutes of that will be absolute heaven. When I come out of the theater, I bet I’ll have been laughing so much that I’ll need a new pair of pants.”

Daniel: “I’m definitely going opening weekend. I’m just trying to imagine what they can’t show.”

“Bad Company.” Cassandra: “I love Anthony Hopkins, because he’s been in so many classic movies, and I love Chris Rock, so it’s a great concept--a really funny comedian and a great actor together. I’m definitely excited about seeing it.”

Andrew: “It was a great idea to have Chris Rock play the part. If he wasn’t in it, I’m not sure I’d want to see it. It might just be another routine spy movie.”

“Undercover Brother.” Gabe: “I hadn’t even heard about this movie yet, but Eddie Griffin was so funny in ‘Double Take’ and ‘Deuce Bigalow’ that I’d go see him in anything.”

“Men in Black II.” Ta: “Oh my God, I have to see that movie. I love Will Smith.”

Cassandra: “I really liked the first movie, and it’s good to see the original cast. I hate it in sequels when they can’t get the original actors and use terrible replacements. It usually means they’ve ruined the movie.”

“Mr. Deeds.” Cassandra: “Adam Sandler is an amazing comic actor. If he weren’t in the movie, I don’t think I’d go. It’s his humor that makes it work.”

Riccardo: “I used to like Sandler too, but ‘Little Nicky’ was really bad and I think he’s going downhill. There isn’t enough in this to make me all that interested.”

“Signs.” Gabe: “The idea behind the movie matters a lot more to me than Mel Gibson. The trailer makes you feel like you’ve got to see the movie to find out what happens.”

“Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones.” Andrew: “I didn’t like ‘Episode I’ very much, and this trailer really didn’t do too much for me. It’s lucky that I’d probably go to any movie where you just write out the name ‘Star Wars.’”

Ta: “It really felt boring. It needs to have something else besides laser beams for me.”

“Eight Legged Freaks.” Daniel: “It reminded me of ‘Starship Troopers’ and the oversized bugs, except with a stupid comic twist. The idea’s been used before.”

Cassandra: “Is it a scary sci-fi movie or is it a comedy? It should be one or the other.”

“Scooby-Doo.” Riccardo: “Can you give this a negative grade? “Doo’ was such a cool cartoon, and this is the worst interpretation possible. They should’ve left the original alone.”

Gabe: “Having Freddie Prinze Jr. playing Fred is the worst idea in the world, and the second-worst idea is having Sarah Michelle Gellar in the movie at all.”

Rating the Trailers

Here’s how the Summer Movie Posse rated 14 of the most anticipated youth-oriented summer movies. Each of the six kids gave the movies a score from 1 to 10 based on how much the trailers made them want to see the films. The highest possible score is 60. Several key movies were not included: “Spider-Man” (everyone had seen the trailer and wanted to see the movie); “Austin Powers in Goldmember” and “Blue Crush” did not have finished trailers available.

1. “Jackass: The Movie”...55

2. “Bad Company”...52

3. “Undercover Brother”...49

4. “Men in Black II”...48

5. “XXX”...47

6. “The Bourne Identity”...46

(Tie) “Mr. Deeds”...46

8. “Signs”...45

9. “The Sum of All Fears”...44

10. “Minority Report”...43

11. “Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones”...40

12. “Juwanna Mann”...39