Seasoned actors' summer success

With the sole exception of Heath Ledger's riveting, maniacal turn as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," I don't think Hollywood has been particularly kind to young performers this season. They have to compete for moviegoers' attention with all the crash, boom, bang, often playing parts as complex as door hinges. Even Christian Bale, who now tops the biggest hit of the summer. I used to think he was talented, particularly his haunting performance as a kid in "Empire of the Sun," but I think Christopher Nolan must have poured antifreeze into his veins to tamp down any personal inflection for this stint as Batman. OK, it's hard to act with only the bottom half of your face and sporting some weird voice-distorter, but still. You know it's bad when the best evidence for Bale's beating heart is his recent four-hour stint at a London police station, for an alleged scrap with his mother. (Bale's lawyer has denied all the allegations.)

I wonder if Bale is next in a growing line of talented actors like Tobey Maguire and Hayden Christensen, whose whole persona is swallowed up by his blockbuster alter-ego.

My theory is that great audience-connecting stars have a capacity for joy. There's Johnny Depp, a journeyman star until his diabolical, mascara-wearing Jack Sparrow gobbled the screen, or Angelina Jolie, probably the biggest female star in the world at the moment, who does bad-girl glee like no one else. Ford, Bruce Willis, Will Smith, even Tom Cruise launched their careers with irreverence, and Julia Roberts has her own idiosyncratic specialty of smiling through tears.

That's part of the reason Downey, Parker and Streep are strutting out of the summer with their reputations and earning power enhanced. That's why after decades in the business Streep is finally shedding her reputation as being too classy for the masses. Finally, as she heads toward her seventh decade on the planet, Streep might be getting some commercial wings.

This is the summer that Downey, Parker and Streep remembered that a movie star's highest calling is to entertain ... and have fun.

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rachel.abramowitz@latimes .com