With this weekend’s release of “The Hulk,” the summer movie season will be officially underway! Or perhaps it was with the release of “Finding Nemo” earlier this month. No, truth to tell, summer probably arrived with “The Matrix Reloaded.” It’s hard to say, and it depends which studio you’re from. But with “The Hulk,” summer will have begun for Universalites, Paramountanians, the Disneyese, and (though this is less important) the Earth, so it’s safe to say that we’re all officially there.

The big question, therefore, is what pictures will be on the screen in front of you when you sit down to enjoy the air conditioning and comfy chair that you rented at $5 per hour. Here, then, is the breakdown of Movies That You Didn’t Expect Too Much From But Will Be Oddly Disappointed In Anyway.

The Hulk - There’s only one superhero whose salient characteristic is that when he transforms into his heroic form he also becomes deeply, tragically retarded. Ang Lee’s tale of the grammatically-challenged Hulk promises to be that rare kind of summer movie that is actually watchable. Expect the film to be unexpectedly lovely, eschewing photo-realism for the kind of lyrically beautiful action that fueled “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” The big upside to this is that you’ll get to spend July overhearing indignant and irony-proof comic book fans grousing that the Hulk himself “looked fake.”

Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life - Speaking of fake-looking: She doesn’t order martinis (shaken or stirred), she isn’t an international playgirl, she doesn’t belong to any fascinating spy organizations populated with colorful characters, she doesn’t in fact have any discernible character traits whatsoever, but she’s box office gold. Angelina Jolie returns to her un-role as the adventuring cypherette once again facing the deadly challenge of having to carry two enormous, motionless throw pillows in her brassiere. Buy your tickets now (plot and dramatic momentum sold separately).

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - Arnold Schwarzenegger reprises his role as the increasingly wrinkly and cuddly cyborg who returns from beyond to save us all from a horrifying future where machines rule and insane musclebound Austrians govern the State of California. Laughs abound as the best Hollywood minds attempt to devise an enemy somehow more “ultimate” than the one in “T2″ and to play with a “cool” time paradox that was already thoroughly muddied and incoherent as a result of the first two films. Don’t worry - Tinseltown has solved the logical impossibility of a sequel and all the other niggling temporal difficulties with powerfully-employed classical box office reasoning: “Arnold blows stuff up, and this time the bad robot’s a hot chick!”

Seabiscuit - I blame George W. Bush for the latest trend in movie heroes: Tobey Maguire now joins Matt Damon in the ranks of young actors who exclusively play simple, clumsy guys who are shocked and amazed at their own extraordinary hidden abilities. This no doubt stems from our collective need to believe that it’s possible for dopey-looking uncomplicated guys to have extraordinary hidden abilities. Otherwise, as Schopenhauer said, we’re fucked.
Still, “Seabiscuit” has some promise if it can avoid collapsing under the weight of its own self-importance. Anyway, a score by Randy Newman in turboschmaltz-mode could turn Lou Dobbs’ “Moneyline” into a Oscar-caliber tear-jerker, even without the sentimental bronze-light lens filter that’s bound to make everyone in “Seabiscuit” look like Auric Goldfinger’s latest victims, so you’re bound to get your money’s worth.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - What happens when Hollywood gets ahold of a remarkably clever and well-researched comic book that playfully teams up the Victorian era’s most bizarre heroes and antiheroes? Perhaps some amazingly campy, 19th century retro hi-jinx with a unique flavor that finally brings the burgeoning “steampunk” genre to the silver screen in exemplary fashion? A film that breaks out of the tired summer-movie mold with an aesthetic all its own? Here’s a clue: The film’s posters and marketing materials are now referring to it as “LXG.”

Enjoy the air conditioning.