In the final installment of our Summer Movie Preview looking at the biggest films to hit the theaters later this year, it's reboots and rap -- from comedy sequels to re-started superhero sagas, reconstituted TV shows and musical bio-pics right from the streets ...

Vacation -- July 31

There are, to be sure, some people with happy memories of the National Lampoon comedy Vacationfrom the '80s -- namely Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo, who got to cash paychecks for them, but maybe a few civilians, too.

This reboot/relaunch features Ed Helms (The Office) playing alongside Chase in another story of vacation chaos for the Griswold family, with a high number of familiar names along for the ride -- Leslie Mann, Chris Hemsworth, Nick Kroll and many others. There's a question of if name-brand recognition is going to pull in ticket buyers, but again, this is a sequel following up a film from 1983 whose sequels and spin-offs were hardly household names when they happened. If any film this summer is going to be poisoned by the gap between nostalgia and reality, it will most probably be this one.

Fantastic Four -- Aug. 7

The biggest comic-book bet of the year, as Fox's reboot, long shrouded in secrecy, opens up to see if this attempt to bring one of the first families of comic book heroics to the screen. The director is Josh Trank, finally following up his indie breakthrough Chronicle; the cast is a list of rising stars like Miles Teller (Whiplash), Kate Mara (House of Cards), Jamie Bell (Undertow, Turn) and Michael B.

Jordan (Creed, Fruitvale Station)  as the four scientist-explorers whose visit to a new dimension leaves them strangely changed; Toby Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Control)  plays their nemesis Dr. Doom. The trailers have only just begun to leak out for this one, but we'll see if Trank can find the balance between four-color retro comic-book fun and modern gritty gloominess.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. -- Aug. 14

Originally attached to Steven Soderbergh -- and please cry just one tear for what might have been in that case -- this big-screen relaunch of the Cold War-era T.V. show actually has the guts to take place during the Cold War's swinging '60s height. Now directed by Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes, Snatch), the film stars Henry Cavill as the top American agent in the world and Armie Hammer (The Social Network) as his opposite number from the Soviet Union, with both teaming up to, of course, stop some greater foe. True, the original Man from U.N.C.L.E. stopped running in 1968, 46 years ago -- but at the same time, based solely on a cursory viewing of the initial trailer, any movie with Armie Hammer as a surly Commie legbreaker who throws motorcycles at people is sure to get my ticket-buying dollar.

Straight Outta Compton -- Aug. 14

It is startling to note that of all the films that played CinemaCon, the film industry's recent pre-party party to start the summer off right, this film had the biggest-playing trailer and best-received clips -- not an action franchise or a sci-fi fable, but a bio-pic about the rise and fall of the rap group N.W.A. in America during the '80s. Note that there's some reason to be concerned -- musical bio-pics are often, after all, beholden to what the rights-holders of the music say can and can't happen on-screen, which often results in bland moviemaking designed more to sell Greatest Hits records than it is to actually pay honor to an artist or their time -- but at the same time, Ice Cube's involvement along with Dr. Dre as producers for the film is a positive suggestion of some hands-on work, even if it is to polish some aspects of their reputation.