Planet of The Hypes

By Melissa August, Anthee Carassava, Ellin Martens, Benjamin Nugent, Joseph Pierro, Sora Song, Heather Tesoriero and Josh Tyrangiel

Summer may be weeks away, but Hollywood is already working overtime to make sure you spend it indoors. In an attempt to get Web surfers salivating over summer's big-budget wannabe blockbusters, studios are pulling out all the stops to give you something to do online when the boss isn't looking. You can spend hours jousting with geeks as hopeless as you are, brush up on your history while you blow things up, and pour your heart out to a robot--with no price of admission.

www.pearlharbor.com LOOK Steely, '40s-style austerity TIME WASTER Get perspective of Japanese bombing-run pilots in a game; read accounts of real Pearl Harbor vets OVERALL MERIT Ultra-tacky but perverse fun. Take that, Yankee dogs!

www.planetoftheapes.com LOOK Trippy, futuristic, hairy TIME WASTER Meditate on director Tim Burton's simian haircut. Listen to him repeatedly insist this is not a remake OVERALL MERIT Good effort, but pixels can't evoke those damn dirty apes

www.aimovie.com LOOK More white space than Alaska TIME WASTER Have a casual conversation on diverse subjects with Chatbot, who's into ABBA and opera OVERALL MERIT Cooler than humans

www.aknightstale.com LOOK ESPN meets Monty Python TIME WASTER Puncture fellow slackers in the online tournament that already has 11,000 players. Take that, Saxon dog! OVERALL MERIT Better than Doom, dude

www.jurassicpark.com LOOK Lots of scary claw marks TIME WASTER Webcast from the set with commentary on story and FX by cast members Sam Neill and William H. Macy OVERALL MERIT Should be made extinct