Well, the much-anticipated summer season is just around the corner, our panacea for intrusive boredom, our refuge from the blistering heat, our excuse to completely forget our age, dismiss our shame, and proceed to catch the steady stream of films with a lot of shiny sparkly things in the trailer. And boy, does the second Friday in May bring a film that fits that description to a T. But be forewarned, folks, this one looks to be far more sizzle than steak.

As a young 'un, there were many, many cartoons that I was a staunch watcher of, but Speed Racer was not one of them. I don't remember exactly what about it turned me off ... perhaps it was the corniness, perhaps it was the choppy animation, perhaps it was the fact that just about every episode was basically the same. (Of course, the same could be said about Scooby-Doo, but what can I say? Daphne was HOT!) Given the prolific numbers of Saturday-morning fare that has been stretched to full-feature-length, jazzed up and shoved into theaters, one figured it would only be a matter of time before this one was as well.

We've all seen the trailer. (And if you haven't, go somewhere and download it, and then come back. I'll wait.) Yes, that's right, this film is being brought to us by none other than the Wachowski Brothers, who brought us the revolutionary (no pun intended) Matrix series a few years ago. Speed is their first non-Matrix directorial project since then (although they did co-produce the awesome V For Vendetta in 2005), and so any of us who feel driven (snicker) to go see this film know what to expect: effects, effects, effects.

Most cartoons tend to fall into one of two categories: Either they tend to be very little-kid oriented, done for laughs more than thrills, or they are more tailor-made for older kids, with more action, fighting and, let's face it, coolness. And, let's be honest: Most large-screen adaptations of the former tend to do very, very poorly at the ticket counters. To wit, Rocky and Bullwinkle ($35 million worldwide; production costs of $76 million), Josie and the Pussycats ($14 million worldwide; production costs of $39 million) and Inspector Gadget ($134 million worldwide, but production costs of $90 million), to name a few. Others have met with mild-to-good success, such as the Scooby-Doo ($456 million worldwide from two films) and Underdog ($63 million worldwide) films. And some go right through the roof, like last winter's Alvin and the Chipmunks ($357 million worldwide; I'm still at a loss to explain how THAT happened). However, the only point of reference I have for a live-action-ACTION-cartoon-adaptation is last summer's Transformers ($707 million worldwide), which was a towering pinnacle of success for Michael Bay.

Will a film about a hotshot young racecar driver do as well as one about warring robots from space ($319 million domestic)? Not ... on ... your ... life. But I'll get to that later.  The story: when Speed Racer (yes, that is his real name, apparently), a talented racecar driver from a family of racecar drivers, is blackmailed by the head of an evil multi-national conglomerate to participate in a cross-country race (the same race that killed his older brother several years before), he decides not to capitulate, but rather to race for himself. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either, but who cares, really? The plot is secondary, and we all know it.

Speed is played by young actor Emile Hirsch, who just recently got a huge career boost from his role in the critical darling Into the Wild. His parents are played by Susan Sarandon and John Goodman, and Christine Ricci plays Speed's girlfriend Trixie. Lost's Matthew Fox steps in as the mysterious Racer X.  Not too bad, as casts go, but given this script, I'm not looking for incredibly deep performances. The characters seem to be as two-dimensional as in the original cartoon series, and they, too, are just a means to an end.

Going back over the last 10 years or so, the second week of May is usually devoid of anything this grandiose. Given that the summer's leadoff hitters tend to be simply ginormous, there's little chance that something even slightly less spectacular could take its place at No. 1. And history seems to back me up ... over the last eight years, only two films released on the second Friday in May ended up winning the weekend: 2005's Monster-In-Law, which did so only because the mega-flop Kingdom of Heaven was all it had to compete against, and 2004's Troy, which steamrolled Van Helsing in its second week. Most of the rest range from ho-hum to simply forgettable: 28 Weeks Later (2007), Poseidon (2006), Unfaithful (2002), A Knight's Tale (2001) and, ugh, Battlefield Earth (2000). The only two films to go blockbuster with this particular release date were Troy ($133 million) and 2003's Daddy Day Care ($103 million).

And on top of that, just look what Speed has to contend with: Iron Man, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (one week later) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (two weeks later). There's no way you can tell me that Speed Racer has the same allure as any of those films. Narnia and Indiana Jones are proven family-friendly action/adventure/fantasy names, and Iron Man should vie with The Dark Knight to be the biggest "superhero" film of 2008. Speed Racer cannot, and will not, be able to keep pace.

That being said, I think it has too much going for it to be a TOTAL failure. I just watched the latest trailer for the film (now up at worstpreviews.com), and it's by far the best one yet. It is, frankly, the first time since I saw the initial teaser that I've even been remotely interested in seeing this film. I think the look of the film, along with the words "from the creators of The Matrix" plastered everywhere this film is being advertised, will be enough for it to nudge its way past the Man of Iron in its second week. I predicted that Robert Downey Jr.'s stab at comic-book immortality would make about $65-75 million in its opening weekend, and I think that will drop to roughly $40 million in its second weekend. Speed should have just enough petrol to manage between $45 and $50 million, but look for this film to be extremely front-loaded: everyone who wants to see it is going to do so in its first two weeks. I look for a total of about 14 Top 5 points, 6-8 PTA points, a User Rating in the low 6's, and I predict it will sputter across the finish line with roughly $125 million, which is not bad for a second-week-of-May release.

In absolutely no way, shape or form is this film worth the $42 you would spend on it in the April leagues (both Ultimate and Box Office). Fantasy Moguls predicts 13 Top 5, a whopping 11 PTA, and $220 in total revenues, which is ... really just outrageous. I personally have this film on my Fantasy Bankrupts slate, given that you have to have ONE of the summer biggies on there to get yourself to $95, which means getting a high-dollar, high-Top 5 movie is inevitable. If you're playing to actually WIN, your league, however, steer well clear (heh) of Speed Racer.

I'm not sure exactly when the term "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" was coined; whether it is a phrase that just entered the vernacular in the last few years, or whether it's a well-known chestnut that never really got any hype until now. Whatever the case, it's a wonder that the premise behind the film entitled What Happens In Vegas hasn't been done before (or at least, not on this large a scale). Given that the name "Vegas" is practically synonymous with vice, hedonism and debauchery, the idea of two complete strangers hooking up, going on a wild drunken bender and ending up married is perfectly plausible, and prime territory for a raunchy romantic comedy.

But let's backtrack for a moment. Jack (Ashton Kutcher) and Joy (Cameron Diaz) are two individuals, living separate lives, who suddenly have the bottom drop out of those lives: it's financial in his case, and romantic in hers. Each of them decides to vacation in Sin City to forget their woes, and they end up meeting there and having a pretty wild time together. At least until the next morning, when they find that their massive hangovers have come complete with wedding bands. The initially agree to get an immediate annulment, but then, just before parting ways, Jack takes Joy's last quarter and shoves it in a slot machine. Just one last expression of disgust, on his way out the door ... only he hits the jackpot, of course, setting off a dispute between the semi-espoused stranger regarding who gets the dough.

The bickering former one-night standers ask a divorce judge to settle their differences, but he instead sentences them to remain married for six months, or neither one gets a penny. So the unlikely pair proceed to find new and ever-more-creative ways to drive the other crazy, hoping to score the prize all for themselves. Let the mind games begin! What do you want to bet that the two end up falling in love and staying married anyway? (I honestly don't know how the film ends, but I'd lay a 10-spot on that happening.)

Kutcher, who just turned 30, hasn't really done much since That '70s Show ended in 2006, apart from the so-so The Guardian and the animated Open Season. I guess he finally decided to take a break from playing house with Demi and her kids ... and since she seems to be working full-time again, why not? As for Princess Fiona, erm, I mean Diaz, she, too, has done very little live-action work in the last five years (In Her Shoes and The Holiday are all I could find). The supporting cast includes Queen Latifah, Dennis Farina, Dennis Miller and Lake Bell.

Directed by Tom Vaughan (Starter For 10), Vegas has, I think, a true chance to capitalize this summer. It looks funnier than Made of Honor, (which will be in its second week), and much, MUCH more guy-friendly than Sex and the City, that's for damn skippy. It will easily outperform any of the comedies of April, and I think that, with a good ad campaign and a decent opening weekend, it could flirt with the coveted $100 million mark.

It could just as easily flop, of course, but I don't think that's going to happen. Needless to say, I find all of Fantasy Moguls's numbers regarding this film to be woefully inadequate. They predict only three Top 5 points; I say six, opening at No. 3 on its initial weekend (behind Iron Man and Speed Racer, dropping to No. 4 one week later when The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian opens, and to No. 5 the week after when only Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hits theaters. They figure only one PTA point will occur; well, the only other film being released on the May 9 weekend is Noise, and I can't see that one doing all that well, so Vegas could slip in with three our four.

I won't dispute the 5.8 User Rating that Fantasy Moguls foretells, because even though it looks funny, I'm guessing a lot of people will find the movie clichéd and/or stale. And as for the projected take of $38 million, well, I think it will easily double, perhaps even triple that amount. I'm taking a flyer on this one, folks. It will run you only half as much ($8) as Made of Honor in the April Ultimate Leagues, which makes it a far more tempting pick in my book. And as for it going off at only $7 in the Box Office leagues, well ... my rule of thumb is to try to pick the films that will give you the best dollar-earned-to-dollars-spent ratio. It's priced at only $7, which means that even if it only makes $50 million, that's still a $7 million/$1 ratio, which is simply awesome. If every movie you picked could do that, you'd wind up with around $700 million, which I daresay, would win most leagues, even in summer.

Well, that will do it for me for yet another week. Next week, I, along with all of the other Fantasy Moguls columnists, will be doing something a little different. I won't go into the details about what Mister Informative or Indie Jones are doing (I'll leave that for them), but I can tell you that it will be much like what we did last November, when we pretty much dissected the entire winter season in one fell swoop. (Yeah, "The Golden Compass is an easy $150 million earner," rassinfrassin ...) In my case, I will be outlining the Top 5 and PTA champs for each of the 13 weeks spanning May 2nd to July 25th.

TTFN!

Shrykespeare has never married anyone after just one night in Las Vegas. But if he had, he wouldn't use their quarter to play a slot machine, and if he did, he'd wait until they were long gone to do it. We're just sayin'. Tell him your own stories of wild hootenannyism at shrykespeare42@gmail.com.