Escapism, fantasy mark summer movies in recession

PLAYING FOR LAUGHS

Yet the summer wouldn't be complete without comedies, and Hollywood harkens to prehistoric times to dredge up laughs.

Will Ferrell stars as a researcher sucked into a time vortex in "Land of the Lost," based on the 1970s television series about modern-day people on the run from prehistoric dinosaurs. The film hits theaters June 5.

In "Year One," due in theaters June 19, director Harold Ramis explores the comedy of cavemen when two lazy hunter-gatherers (Jack Black and Michael Cera) are banished from their primitive village.

On July 1, "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" has Simon Pegg joining the animated film franchise's cast as a one-eyed weasel who hunts very big game on the tundra.

There are plenty of summer spooks, too.

"Spider-Man" director Sam Raimi returns to his horror roots with May's "Drag Me to Hell," starring Alison Lohman as a loan officer who falls under an evil curse.

In June, Nazi zombies terrorize skiers in the kitschy Norwegian horror flick "Dead Snow."

Back in the real world, marriage becomes a con in June's "The Proposal," in which Sandra Bullock stars as a career woman who weds her hunky assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to avoid getting deported to her native Canada. In May, Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn star in "Management," about two very different people brought together at a roadside motel.

Other big-ticket titles in the early months of summer include Vegas bachelor-party-gone-awry comedy "The Hangover" and a remake of the 1970s thriller "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington.

Ending the season's first half on July 1 will be "Public Enemies," a biopic about a trio of 1930s bank robbers starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Channing Tatum. Even though it may not offer much of an escape from reality, a story about robbing banks may strike a chord with bailout-weary audiences.

And that takes audiences into the summer's second half when widely-anticipated "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" is set to conjure up some magic.