On the screen this summer, everyone is a superhero. Just take a look at the nobodies who end up all-powerful and in costumes in Green Lantern (June 17) and Captain America (July 22). The women join in, too, like Harry's stalwart sidekick, Hermione, in Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, Part 2 (July 15). And if you want to include ruthless opportunism as a superheroic trait, then Cameron Diaz in the title role of Bad Teacher (June 24) would have to qualify, too.
But as the latter example suggests, such heroism can come at a price. Even when the goal is justice, the single-minded pursuit and wielding of power can push one over to the dark side. Not just in the movies, but in real life: just look at Charlie Sheen, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and, of course, the original Conan the Barbarian, Arnold Schwarzenegger. This summer, could the superhero's mask conceal something unsavory — like the face of the beast unleashed in Rise of the Planet of the Apes?
Related:
Review: Green Lantern, Review: Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, Review: Pianomania, More 
- Review: Green Lantern
A parlor game could be made out of how many times the word "fear" is uttered in Martin Campbell's superhero franchise non-starter.
- Review: Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
There's something destabilizing about seeing Conan O'Brien — whose image has been familiarized in the collective consciousness wearing a neatly tailored suit in front of a Manhattan backdrop — suddenly laid bare by a jittery handheld camera in the comfort of his kitchen.
- Review: Pianomania
You don't need to be knowledgeable about classical music to savor Pianomania any more than you need to know about Donkey Kong to enjoy The King of Kong. The Vienna-set documentary burrows into the professional life of Steinway & Sons' chief technician and master tuner Stephan Knüpfer.
- Review: The First Beautiful Thing
As a child in the Tuscany port town of Livorno, Bruno was understandably anxious and unsettled as he and his sister scooted after their hot mamma (Micaela Ramazzotti) because all three had been bounced from their home by a jealous father.
- Review: Nostalgia for the Light
The driest place on earth is the Atacama desert in Chile. Ten thousand feet above sea level, it allows astronomers the clearest skies in the world for observing the universe; they gaze as far back as the Big Bang and the origins of the cosmos.
- Review: X-Men: First Class
"Mutant and proud!" indeed
- Buñuel continues to delight, confound, and shock
Openly, contentedly delighted with how our own dreams can appall us, and how close movies are to that appalling dreaminess, Luis Buñuel — the subject of an extensive survey at the HFA this month — may have been the greatest filmmaker of the medium's first century.
- Review: Louder Than A Bomb
The kids whom Jacobs and Siskel have chosen for us to watch are so enthralling, with such remarkable life stories, that their autobiographical poems have actual power.
- Review: Tree of Life
The story is primal, but the details are elusive.
- Review: City of Life and Death
Shot in opulent black and white, the atrocities never cease.
- Review: Yellowbrickroad
Directors Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton appear to be trying to avoid the stereotypical standard horror-movie schlocker and do something more ambitious.
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