Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

After a drama whose visuals failed to grab me, I felt like seeing a fanciful animation. Alas, it's getting hard to think of promising ones I haven't seen yet. As usual for late-'90s or early-'00s Disney, this one underperformed a bit upon release but still gets mentioned positively in my circles now and then. Would I join the cult fandom?

In 1914, adorkable archaeologist Milo (Michael J. Fox) is disrespected even in scholarly circles for obsessing over the possibility of finding the legendary ruins of Atlantis. He finally gets a break when a rich man (John Mahoney) who knew Milo's grandfather finances an expedition, with Milo serving primarily to read instructions in an ancient language. To the entire party's surprise, Atlantis is still populated, and Milo grows pretty close to their princess, Kida (Cree Summer). But most of the explorers are in it just for wealth, and the less scrupulous among them, especially Commander Rourke (James Garner), are willing to steal the very crystal that allows Atlanteans to live in their air pocket space: the Heart of Atlantis.

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Not the 2010 remake. It would take nothing short of a long plane ride with a poor entertainment menu to get me to watch that. Instead, in my quest for a summer-type viewing, I decided not to let Jason and the Argonauts be my only taste of Ray Harryhausen.

Perseus (Harry Hamlin), as a favored mortal bastard son of Zeus (Laurence Olivier), has grown up in peace. But through no fault of his own, sea goddess Thetis (Maggie Smith) has a bone to pick with him. He suddenly finds himself teleported to a kingdom where anyone courting the princess, Andromeda (Judi Bowker), must answer a riddle or burn to death. Already smitten with her, Perseus uses divine material gifts and the help of friends, including poet Ammon (Burgess Meredith), to protect her -- first from her former fiance, Thetis's son Calibos (Neil McCarthy), who forces her to ask the riddles, and then from Thetis's wrath in the form of the Kraken.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Just because I can't go to a theater doesn't mean I'm going to spend the whole summer without a typical summer movie! This one may have been the most popular superhero flick I hadn't seen yet, which, at this point, isn't saying much.

Most of the action takes place in 1983, a decade after most of the action in X-Men: Days of Future Past, which came out only two years earlier. The world at large has only recently discovered superpowered mutants, but it turns out that they predate civilization; they just became more common in the last century. One (Oscar Isaac) who would eventually go by "Apocalypse" had reigned as a god-king many times over, destroying nations when he saw fit, but an uprising in ancient Egypt resulted in him being buried and comatose for more than 5,000 years. It's not entirely clear what wakes him -- maybe a cosmic phenomenon or the mysticism of an inexplicable present cult -- but soon after, he decides the whole world is long overdue for a cleansing. No, he doesn't have halfway-noble reasons; he believes that the strong should rule. It doesn't take long for telepathic Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) to notice something's off, but while his school's students and staff are powerful, they haven't been training in combat for some time. They can barely be called X-Men. And the ensuing struggle is nothing to phone in.

Time Bandits (1981)

I mentioned that I would see another consecutive movie about a boy. Thankfully, it's quite different. In fact, despite the PG rating, I hesitate to count it as a family flick. IMDb doesn't. (Non-American studios, I find, are more likely to have kid-unfriendly stories starring kids.)

Kevin, 11, suffers from parents uninterested in his interest in history. One night, his bedroom is accidentally invaded by six time-traveling dwarves. They're interested in history, of course, but not for the same reason: They want to steal the riches of the past. Despite his disapproval of that plan, Kevin tags along, with nary a language barrier. He learns that they've worked for the Supreme Being himself on maintenance of the space-time continuum, and since they swiped his temporal map, they have to keep moving. (They've been around for eons but seem as vulnerable as humans.) Little do they realize that the scarier threat is from Evil himself, looking to grab the map for his own ends.

The Robe (1953)

Having declined in religiosity, I don't watch film adaptations of Christian legends/books as much as I used to. But a good swords-and-sandals epic doesn't require devout Christianity for entertainment. Heck, Quo Vadis? (1951) had a Jewish director. Perhaps the panned re-remake of Ben-Hur helped inspire me to try another one (along with the streaming deadline).

The protagonist is Marcellus Gallio (Richard Burton), the tribune who oversees the crucifixion of Jesus, despite pleas from slave Demetrius (Victor Mature). As soon as Marcellus puts on Jesus' robe in the rain, he is beset with mental and physical symptoms. The illness remains in some measure long after Demetrius runs off with the robe. Marcellus hopes to find and destroy the robe for a cure, but his journey exposes him to more and more Christian love and piety, including that of Peter (Michael "Klaatu" Rennie). It's no spoiler to say that he converts -- leaving plenty of time for conflict with other Romans, including mutual crush Diana (Jean Simmons) and Emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson).

Hercules (1997)

In the past year or so, I've increased my viewing of animated features from the late '90s and early 2000s, when Disney had taken a dive in popularity, not counting collaborations with Pixar. Why? Well, sometimes I want to see something not only short but colorful, whimsical, and unchallenging, and I've already seen the bulk of the most esteemed fare in that category. Oddly enough, I tend to like the "middling" stuff almost equally; it must be a matter of expectations and backlash.

As you may recall, Hercules came out after the double whammy of underachievers Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. One of their alleged problems was working with darker stories than the target audience was used to watching. So someone had the bright idea of turning to Greco-Roman tragedy for something more uplifting! OK, if you remember anything from the trailer and your own studies of ancient history and mythology, you know that Disney took possibly even more liberties with the source material than ever before or since, as if nobody bothered to review what they learned in junior high. (Kudos to the ad makers for conveying the feeling accurately while not giving away the best moments.)