On Movies: Movies by Steven Rea: Stuffed summer

Like some portentous nightmare, the summer of 2015 presented itself to me the other day at the AMC Loews Cherry Hill. I was there to see Furious 7 (Vin Diesel, start writing that Oscar acceptance speech - now!). But first came the trailers, one after the other after the other, signaling a daunting pileup of digitally polished productions that will be kabooming in 3-D and Imax through Hollywood's most lucrative season.

The so-called summer that begins this Friday with the Marvel Cinematic Universe installment Avengers: Age of Ultron and ends Labor Day weekend with The Transporter Refueled offers a whopping roster of remakes, reboots, resets, prequels, sequels, spinoffs, and thrice-baked tales set in some other, nostalgia-tinged time zone.

Here's what I saw:

California falling apart in the seismic apocalypse of San Andreas (May 29), in which helicopter-rescue dude Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plucks Carla Gugino out of the rubble of downtown L.A. and Paul Giamatti warns that "people need to know that the shaking is not over." (Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner experienced similar disquietude in 1974's Earthquake, but they didn't have computer-generated visual effects to make the toppling of Hollywood landmarks look so smashingly real.)

I got a glimpse of Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15), with Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron picking up where Mel Gibson left off 30 years ago in the post-apocalyptic Road Warrior franchise. I saw Jurassic World (June 12), the follow-up to Steven Spielberg's dino-land trilogy hatched in 1993, this time with a new, genetically engineered saurus to send everybody running for their lives. I saw Poltergeist (May 22), a remake of another Spielberg-produced hit from another century (the original creepy-TV-signals scare pic came out in 1982). And Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (July 31), the fifth in the Tom Cruise Impossible Missions Force series, featuring Jeremy Renner, who also also appears as Hawkeye in Avengers.

Speaking of double duty, San Andreas doomsayer Giamatti rears his head again, too, in the preview for Straight Outta Compton (Aug. 14). He plays the business manager to Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and the gang from the seminal 1980s hip-hop unit N.W.A. It's a period-piece biopic, and Giamatti has period hair.

At least Southpaw (July 24), with Jake Gyllenhaal as a tormented prize fighter trying to reclaim custody of his little girl, doesn't appear to be cobbled together from an old movie or TV show or board game. (In fact, it's inspired, says screenwriter Kurt Sutter, by real-life travails of rapper Eminem.)

And yes, there's a new Pixar pic that doesn't come with a numeral, a colon, a dash, or some other sequel signifier attached. Inside Out (June 19), from Oscar-winning Up director Pete Docter, is about a teenage girl struggling with her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness - all of which are given voice, and personality. It is, per Disney, via Wikipedia, "based on an original idea."

If you haven't already gotten the drift, original ideas look to be few and far between this summer. I can't speak for the Sofia Vergara-Reese Witherspoon buddy pic Hot Pursuit (May 8), or the George Clooney Disney time-travel yarn Tomorrowland (May 22), or the Melissa McCarthy CIA-caper Spy (June 5), but try these on for size:

Pitch Perfect 2 (May 15) marks the harmonizing return of Anna Kendrick and company.

Entourage (June 3) is the big-screen spawn of the HBO series.

Insidious: Chapter 3 (June 5) is somehow eerily connected to Insidious 1 and 2.

Ted 2 (June 26) reteams Mark Wahlberg and that potty-mouthed plush toy from the super-raunchy 2012 hit.

Terminator Genisys (July 1) finds Arnold Schwarzenegger true to his words ("I'll be back") in the fifth entry in the man vs. machine franchise.

Magic Mike XXL (July 1) marks the G-stringing return of Channing Tatum's strip-club superstar.

Minions (July 10) spins off the little yellow demons from the animated Despicable Me blockbusters.

Ant-Man (July 17), with Paul Rudd as the teeny-tiny superhero, comes from a vintage Marvel comic.

Pixels (July 24), based on a 2010 short, finds its nemeses in Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and other classic 1980s arcade games.

Vacation (July 31) puts Chevy Chase and his Griswold clan out on the road one more time.

Fantastic Four (Aug. 7) is another attempt to get the Marvel Comics' quartet going as a movie idea. (The first big-screen version, in 2005, fizzled).

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (Aug. 14) is based on the 1960s spy show of the same name.

Sinister 2 (Aug. 21) picks up where Sinister 1 left off.

Hitman: Agent 47 (Aug. 28) is based on a videogame . . . and so it goes.

A few ostensibly new and promising pictures are on the calendar:  

Aloha (May 29), from Cameron (Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire) Crowe, teams Bradley Cooper, John Krasinski, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, and Emma Stone in a dramedy romance in the 50th state.

Dope (June 19), with Shameik Moore and Zoë Kravitz, comically skewers racial and cultural stereotypes. Rick Famuyiwa's film was the object of an intense bidding war after its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Trainwreck (July 17) stars the dangerously funny Amy Schumer, who allowed Judd Apatow to direct her screenplay about a relationship-challenged New Yorker. The version that screened at SXSW last month was met with almost universal praise. Coincidentally, Universal is releasing.

Mr. Holmes (late July) stars Ian McKellen as the aging consulting detective, trying to put right many things his dear departed colleague, Dr. Watson, got wrong in those famous Baker Street chronicles. McKellen reteams with his Gods and Monsters director, Bill Condon.

Irrational Man (late July) is this year's Woody Allen, and although it features last year's Woody Allen leading lady (Magic in the Moonlight's Emma Stone), it appears to be built of heftier stuff. It's the story of a philosophy professor (Joaquin Phoenix) in the throes of existential crisis.

Ricki and the Flash (Aug. 7) stars Meryl Streep as a career rock-and-roller (La Streep studied guitar, intensely, for the role) trying to patch things up with her daughter (real-life Streep progeny Mamie Gummer). Rick Springfield and Kevin Kline co-star. Diablo (Juno) Cody wrote the script, Jonathan Demme directs. So, who knows?

Alex Garland, the writer and director of what could be the sleeper hit of early "summer" - this weekend's sci-fi thriller, Ex Machina - had this to say about Hollywood's propensity for formulaic mega-budget fare:

"I'm a grown-up, you know. I love watching blockbuster movies, I really do. I've got no problem with them at all. But I also want adult drama . . . and great scripts."

Popcorn movies, tent poles, franchises, they have their place, he says.

"But it's like if you were just being fed cheeseburgers and you love cheeseburgers - but at a certain point, they're going to make you throw up."

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