As long as we can hold out until Superman Returns (June 30), maybe we’ll be okay. AWOL from X-Men, Bryan Singer revives the franchise with newcomer Brandon Routh as the superhero and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor.

JULY
To be sure, there’s nothing like the mindlessly fun special effects of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest   (July 7), Gore Verbinski’s follow-up to the 2003 buried treasure, with Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and newcomer Stellan Skarsgård, to put one’s mind at ease. Even so, I can’t help thinking that there’s something going on I don’t know about. Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s  A Scanner Darkly   (July 7) won’t help matters. Done in the same creepy live animation style as Waking Life (and those irritating investment ads), it stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Robert Downey Jr. as denizens of drug-war universe where nothing and no one is as they seem.

Neither does Ivan Reitman’s My Super Ex-Girlfriend (July 14) promise much relief. It’s bad enough that Luke Wilson breaks up with Uma Thurman, but then he discovers she has a super-powered secret identity and is determined to make his life miserable.

What happened to the simple pleasures of boy meets girl? In M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water (July 21), Bryce Dallas Howard plays a water nymph whom Paul Giamatti finds in his swimming pool. Didn’t any of these people see Bryce’s dad’s Splash?

And in keeping with the environmental enmity theme, Gil Kenan’s Monster House (July 21) poses a typical suburban domicile as the ultimate evil in this deceptively blithe animation voiced by Steve Buscemi, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jon Heder.

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Somehow I don’t think the revival of Miami Vice (July 28) will afford much clarity to the world of A Scanner Darkly. Michael Mann brings his iconic ’80s series to the big screen with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx as chic narcs Crockett and Tubbs.

AUGUST
If you can’t beat them, join them: NASCAR returns in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (August 4), in which Will Ferrell plays a wacky speedster and Adam McKay (Anchorman) directs. Resistance to the nightmare is futile, as Gael García Bernal realizes in The Science of Sleep (August 11), Michel Gondry’s follow-up to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Seek refuge in rationality and the demons win anyway, as Hilary Swank discovers in The Reaping (August 11), where she’s a religious debunker forced back to the faith when Biblical plagues terrorize Louisiana and FEMA folds like a two-dollar suitcase. Stephen Hopkins directs.

Is it too soon, then, to confront our deepest fears? I mean, of course, Snakes on a Plane (August 11). If the film proves as successful as the title, then star Samuel L. Jackson and director David R. Ellis (Cellular) have a hit.

But will it prepare us for World Trade Center (August 11), Oliver Stone’s account of two 9/11 first-responders trapped in the rubble? Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, and Maria Bello star. Or the return of Clerks II (August 18), Kevin Smith’s attempt to recapture the magic that made him an indie favorite 10 years ago?