At the movies with stupid - that would be you

Maybe we should all be wearing one of those "I'm with stupid" T-shirts.

That's the basic premise of a witty and highly entertaining essay by film critic Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle, "The summer of stupid-human flicks."

Is it just coincidence that every summer film that she cites has a sci fi theme?

For example, she writes:

Think back on it (and while you're thinking, expect multiple spoilers). One of summer's most interesting and emotionally hefty blockbusters is Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which slyly manipulates soda-sucking audiences into rooting for chimpanzees in their quest to overthrow their barbaric human captors. (The documentary Project Nim does pretty much the same, minus the overthrow.) As if that's not enough, the movie closes with graphics depicting, yep, a raging global pandemic.

The twin lessons here are: Humanity sucks. And then it dies.

Biancolli has been a friend of mine for about 25 years and is a huge sci fi fan. She doesn't let her fondness for the genre stop her from also citing "X-Men: First Class," "Super 8," "Green Lantern," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2," "Transformer: Dark Side of the Moon" and art-house favorite "Another Earth," which she says "offers a brainier dose of gloom:"

Humanity isn't about to bite it, but it's suffering one doozy of an existential crisis. The film suggests maybe we're not unique, after all - maybe a planet full of mirror-humans is looming nearby, and maybe, like us, they're clueless about astronomy and gravitational pull.

Give her piece a read. And prepare to laugh at yourself.