Rating The Hot-Weather Hopefuls

By RICHARD CORLISS

SUMMER MOVIES ARRIVE THIS YEAR WEARing a big Smile button. In a kinder, gentler mood (and facing a shrinking, glutted market), moguls have resolved to appeal to the widest possible audience. So the violence in action movies gets toned down one calculated notch, to snag a PG or PG-13 rating, and sex is soft-focused into romance.

The industry's favorite new four-letter words are kids and love. Children have prominent roles in a half a dozen summer films, and one look at the demographic charts tells you why. "Baby boomers are having children," notes Universal boss Tom Pollock, "and once those kids hit 5, parents want to take them places." To the multiplex, he hopes.

And while kids look for a new Aladdin or Home Alone, grownups will roam for romantic fare like the recent hits The Bodyguard and Indecent Proposal. That's why some industry swamis have picked Sleepless in Seattle, a sprightly romance, as the season's surprise hit. (Others chose Rookie of the Year and Free Willy.) And the only way that Jurassic Park and Last Action Hero could surprise Hollywood is if they don't hit the $100 million mark in their first four weeks of release.

Like summer rock concerts, summer movies will offer volume, volume, volume. More than 60 pictures will clog the cinemas. Paramount production chief Sherry Lansing is counting on hit films to breed other hits. "If people can't get into a popular film," she says, "they don't go home; they go to another one instead." But what movie to go to? In this summer swarm, you can't tell the major players without a scorecard. Here's ours.

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With reporting by Ginia Bellafante/New York