As we know from The Matrix and the publicity campaign for its sequel, the phenomenal universe is merely a collective fantasy and we’re all imprisoned in a giant circuit board that provides energy for a barren world ruled by machines. Well, fine, but where does reality TV fit in? Not to mention this year’s slate of summer movies, which more than ever consists of illusions reflecting illusions, ad infinitum. Some of these films reflect our paranoia that all is not as it seems, that behind the gaudy, seductive veil of product placement and propaganda that is modern life lies a sinister, inhuman system of control, deceit, and exploitation. Others posit ways of fighting back against the system, pleasing fantasies that assuage our fears and lull us into complacency.

Most summer movies, however, are simply products of the pop-cultural matrix — remakes, retreads, sequels, knockoffs, and related simulacra designed to suck up our energy, time, and money for the purpose of the market’s self-perpetuation. Those perhaps are the most honest efforts; they allow us to regress to the fetal stage of passive consumption. They offer escapism, but no escape.

Tell it to the machines

Say what you will about Andy and Larry Wachowski’s The Matrix franchise ( " Harry Potter with guns, " quips Slate), no other films so savagely satirize consumer capitalism while so shamelessly exploiting it. Produced simultaneously with The Matrix Revolutions, the third film in the trilogy (due out in November), The Matrix Reloaded (May 15; this opening date is firm, but most others given here should be regarded as tentative) switches locales from the lotus dreams of those enslaved in the Matrix to the so-called real world itself, where a massive machine army and the insidious Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) move to crush the last remaining human city of Zion and the would-be savior of the race, Neo, or the One (Keanu Reeves).

A world taken over by machines. An endangered messiah. A relentless assassin. Sound familiar? It seems we’ve been having this particular fantasy since James Cameron unleashed a cyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1984’s The Terminator (if not since Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, in 1927). As promised, Arnold is back, pig-heart valve, gubernatorial ambitions, $30 million salary, and all, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (July 4). The mechanical evildoers of Skynet have sent another state-of-the-art automaton back into the past to eliminate their nemesis John Connor (Nick Stahl), who’s been living underground to avoid detection since T2 back in 1991. And though Arnold’s hoary Model T cyborg has returned to serve as Connor’s bodyguard, James Cameron took a pass in directing, leaving it to Jonathan Mostow (U-571).

If there’s any lesson to be learned from Terminator 3, it’s that if you can’t beat the machines, then just snap on your seat belt and burn rubber. Following up on the unexpected success of 2001’s The Fast and the Furious is 2 Fast 2 Furious (June 6), in which Paul Walker returns as an undercover cop who infiltrates the illegal drag-racing underground to nail a criminal warlord. Universal found original’s star Vin Diesel’s demand for $30 million " 2 " expensive, so it’ll be going with unleaded — i.e., Tyrese Gibson from John Singleton’s Baby Boy, with Singleton taking over the directorial wheel from Rob Cohen.

Resistance may not just be futile, it could be apocalyptic. Such is the case in 28 Days Later (June 27), in which Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) reunites with writer Alex Garland from The Beach. In a scenario admittedly stolen from George Romero’s The Night of the Living Dead (if not from Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys), animal-rights activists accidentally unleash a virus called " Rage " that reduces most of the human race to murderous zombies preying on the small remnant of survivors. Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson star.

Then again, if you go too much over to the machine side, you might end up like the serial killer in Robert (The Hitcher) Harmon’s Highwaymen (August 27), who knocks off women with a ’72 El Dorado. Jim Caviezel gets behind his own set of hot wheels to hunt the mad driver down. And let’s not forget that before we had horsepower, we had powerful horses, like the title hero of Gary (Pleasantville) Ross’s Seabiscuit (July 25). Adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s bestseller Seabiscuit: An American Legend, this one stars former Spider-Man Tobey Maguire as the down-on-his-luck jockey who rode the dark horse of the title (and it took six horses to stand in for the Biscuit) to Depression-era triumph.

Heist makes waste

When it seems that the powers that be have covered every angle, the more resourceful turn to scams, heists, and shakedowns to get their piece of the action. Like the bank clerk with a gambling problem played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the based-in-fact Owning Mahowney (May 16). Faced with debts, he takes it to the bank for one of the biggest con jobs in Canadian history. Richard Kwietniowski (Love and Death on Long Island) directs.

Things are even stickier in Matchstick Men (August 8), in which Nicolas Cage plays a con-man with as many tics as Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. He cooks up a scheme with partner Sam Rockwell to make a big score; then his teenage daughter, played by White Oleander’s Alison Lohman, turns up. Ridley Scott directs, presumably more along the lines of his Thelma & Louise than his Mogadishu debacle Black Hawk Down.

But if the mildly anti-war Black Hawk Down was badly timed, think of the agonies that Miramax has undergone regarding Australian director Gregor Jordan’s Buffalo Soldiers (August 1), a black comedy about US troops dealing, scamming, conning, and behaving badly just as the Wall came down in Berlin in 1989. The studio bought the rights on September 10, 2001, then buried the film the next day; when they finally did show it, at Sundance, an outraged viewer denounced it as un-American and bounced a bottle over star Anna Paquin’s head. Also with Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, and Scott Glenn, it sounds like a must-see.

If the military is off limits when it comes to depicting unorthodox ways of getting ahead, how about high-school students? In The Perfect Score (September 19), a group of seniors applying for college enter the heart of the beast itself — the Princeton Testing Center — to finagle the title ideal. With Scarlett Johansson (Ghost World), it’s directed by Brian Robbins.

Call your agent

Another traditional method of uncovering and resisting the evil tyranny that rules the world is by going undercover as a secret agent. But spies have been pretty much a source of satire since the Bay of Pigs and Get Smart, a dubious tradition continued by the insufferable English clown Rowan Atkinson in Johnny English (July 18). It’s a James Bond parody also starring John Malkovich and Natalie Imbruglia and directed by Peter Howitt (Sliding Doors) that has inexplicably taken over the box office in Europe.

Reprising one of the funniest spy spoofs ever is Andy (The Craft) Fleming’s remake of Arthur Hiller & Andrew Bergman’s 1979 gem The In-Laws (August 23). Michael Douglas plays the sinister and mysterious father of the groom and Albert Brooks plays the befuddled and ultimately terrified father of the bride who’s drawn into the former’s covert universe. Sounds a little like Meet the Parents, too, and if it’s half as funny as either film, it should be a treat.

In general, though, the secret-agent genre has fallen on hard times this summer. Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (July 25) might pile up grosses, but is this what we expected from the director of the breakthrough indie El Mariachi? (The second sequel to which, Once upon a Time in Mexico, opens on September 12.) The undercover brats of the title must defeat their own mini-Matrix, a Tron-like computer video game run by Sylvester Stallone and enhanced by a revival of the 3-D process that proved a dead end in the ’50s. Antonio Banderas stars, as he does in Mexico.

At least Spy Kids isn’t adapted from a video game, like the sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (July 23). Angelina Jolie star once again as the distaff Indiana Jones of the title, who having split from husband Billy Bob Thornton and fallen out with dad Jon Voigt (who played her dad in the original) now looks for more trouble in the form of Pandora’s box. Jan De Bont returns as director.

Women also rule in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (June 27): the sequel to the original adaptation of the hoary TV series sees the return of Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu as the sassy trio of butt-kicking operatives who, this time around, check into who’s infiltrated the FBI Witness Protection program (my guess: Whitey Bulger). Also with Bernie Mac and Demi Moore. McG is back to direct.

Not that men can do much better at revitalizing this troubled genre, though The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (July 11) goes to great lengths to do so. The heroes of 19th-century literature, including Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll, Dorian Gray, the Brothers Karamazov, David Copperfield, and the Hunchback of Notre Dame gather to save the world from war. Well, maybe some of those named didn’t make the cut. Based on the Alan Moore graphic novel and directed by Stephen Norrington (Blade), it stars extraordinary gentleman Sean Connery (he’s Allan Quatermain) as well as Shane West (Tom Sawyer, who grew up to be a Secret Service agent), Stuart Townsend, and Peta Wilson.

The man behind the curtain

It could said that all of Hollywood cinema derives from the ur-text of The Wizard of Oz, a search through a fantastic landscape to confront the source of real power, the man behind the curtain. It may be a dubious premise, but it fits in nicely with Jim Carrey’s new comedy Bruce Almighty (May 23), in which he plays a disgruntled TV reporter fed up with his bad luck whose beef with God results in the Man Upstairs’ temporarily granting him His powers. Tired of playing presidents, Morgan Freeman fills in as the big G, and Jennifer Aniston plays Bruce’s long-suffering girlfriend. Carrey veteran Tom Shadyac (Liar Liar) directs.

The reigning power proves less benign in Exorcist: The Beginning (July 18), a prequel directed by indie icon Paul Schrader (Auto Focus). Stellan Skarsgård takes the Max von Sydow role as a young priest encountering Satanic evil for the first time while working in post-WW2 Africa. The demon’s name is Pazuzu, and he’s mad as hell and wants to conquer the world.

So does The Hulk (June 20) in Ang Lee’s adaptation (where does this fit into an œuvre ranging from Sense and Sensibility to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?) of the Marvel Comics character. Eric Bana plays the scientist who, after one of those pesky lab accidents involving gamma rays and a lot of tears and apologies, turns into a big green guy whenever he gets mad. Jennifer Connelly, who had her hands full with A Beautiful Mind, now shows what she can do with CGI-bulked ugly body. The moral: don’t get even, get mad, even if your rage is just another special effect.

If nothing else, we can rest assured that the men behind the Washington curtain won’t stand a chance when Elle Woods (no relation to Tiger) comes to town. In Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (July 4), Reese Witherspoon becomes an aide to Congresswoman Sally Field so she can fight for animal rights on behalf of her adored Chihuahua, Bruiser. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld steps in for Robert Luketic (schedule conflict) as director; no word as yet on whether the dog who plays Bruiser will be back or whether his salary demands were, like Vin’s, " 2 " much.