It's a storm, folks, not the latest from Hollywood

If every movie this summer seems passe, bland and not at all what you expected, that vacuum of emotion can be blamed on hype.

That's the theory put forth by Entertainment Weekly's Darren Franich, who suggests in a recent essay that box-office attendance is so anemic because this summer's movies have been overpublicized and overscrutinized and, as a result, underenjoyed.

Everyone sees the trailer. Everyone pores over every detail and every leaked photo. Everyone discusses the minutia of the biggest, most important, most captivating, most surprising, most aesthetically pleasing movie - and that's before it even comes out. The buildup is incredible.

And in the end, when the film does arrive at the local cineplex, the same people who obsessed and waited in line, possibly in costume of obscure characters, say the movie was a letdown. Overhyped.

They get unhappy. The conversation about the movie stops. Time to move on to the next big event.

Sound familiar? Remind you at all of Hurricane Irene?

Last weekend, everyone knew that a major storm - what those on TV like to call a "weather event" - was coming to town. We looked at every online storm projection. We were fascinated by every update about wind speed and barometric pressure.

We discussed the minutia. We watched the news, looking for that one bit of information we hadn't heard before. We needed to know if the action scenes were going to be set in the Outer Banks, Virginia Beach, or New York.

I personally reviewed the Saffir-Simpson scale of wind damage so many times that I committed some sections to memory.

Then the hurricane opened. When it did not reveal a disaster resembling a Michael Bay movie ("Transformers," "The Rock," "Pearl Harbor" and, of course, "Armageddon"), the storm was dubbed a disappointment, an epic flop, a blockbuster failure. Sure, we were relieved, but others were let down, too.

Viewers were quick to forget that what happens during a storm is often anticlimactic. The damage can seem pedestrian until the level of cleanup becomes apparent.

By then, it's too late. The aftermath is ignored. The storm becomes a nothing of the past. Everyone moves on. And the storm critics come out with excerpts ripe for a movie poster:

"Overdone. Over the top."

"Didn't pull me to the edge of my seat or even the flood plain."

"A real snoozer that will leave your whole family in yawns."

But like a sleeper hit, the numbers associated with Irene might seem surprising. The storm caused more than $7 billion worth of damage and more than 40 deaths in a path of understated destruction that hit 11 states. Some residents remain without power. Debris is piled on every street corner.

All of which sounds exactly like scenes from a Michael Bay movie.

But the aftermath was too late for good word-of-mouth. The early reviews were in. And they weren't positive.

Those who complain that an overhyped Irene underperformed are the same people who can't distinguish a real natural disaster from a fictional movie.

If it's on TV, to them, it's all equal. That's how Hurricane Irene, despite ruining cherished comic-book collections and newly installed air-conditioning units, became a box-office bust.

It didn't live up to its hype. If, say, the hurricane had taken a sharp left and hit Oklahoma - that would have been unexpected, the surprise ending no one saw coming.

Instead, the highlight was a video of local newsman Andy Fox, blowing in the gusts while claiming he was "past perpendicular." Or a video of a streaker running past The Weather Channel's Eric Fisher while he was on the air.

The storm was entertaining, but it was not entertainment.

Many of us have a natural, but unhealthy, need to rate everything in our lives, including summer blockbusters and earthquakes and even hurricanes. Some of us want to turn the disasters into big personal dramas, events that can be crossed off the giant checklist of life. Did you go? Did you check in on Foursquare? Did you survive? Did you buy the commemorative T-shirt?

All of that creates a feeling of smugness, a bit overhyped and most definitely overrated.

Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277, mike.gruss@pilotonline.com, PilotOnline.com/gruss