***1/2

On April 19, McDonald’s CEO, Jim Cantalupo dropped dead of a heart attack. On April 28, it was announced that McDonald’s first-quarter earnings had jumped 56 percent. On April 29, I saw Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock’s deadly amusing documentary about the evils of eating the burger chain’s fat-laden food. Sometimes, life has an interesting synergy.

As Spurlock grimly points out, everything is bigger in America, including — thanks to the likes of Mickey D and its “super-size” portions — its people. Simply put, we’re the fattest nation in the world: two out of every three adults are overweight or obese, while 37 percent of U.S. kids are packing too many pounds (and getting diabetes at an alarmingly young age). Could our growing consumption of fast food be to blame? Unquestionably, says Spurlock. And to prove the point, he decided he would go on a McDonald’s-only “diet” for 30 days (the equivalent, he says, of eating eight years’ worth of junk food) and document the experience as his filmmaking debut. Great idea. (Or, as his director of photography said when he heard the premise, “That’s a really great bad idea.”)

The rules: breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonald’s, plus he had to have every item on the menu at least once. And he could only super size if asked by the server. (Wait till you see what happens after he finishes his first super-size meal — and it’s only Day 2). “McDonald’s is used in my film as an icon,” Spurlock told the Los Angeles Times. “They represent every [fast] food, every chain, every entity that is now everywhere in America.”

What begins as a light-hearted stunt turns into a something considerably more serious as Spurlock — a healthy, reasonably fit, 33-year-old 185-pounder – watches himself deteriorate physically. In less than a week, his liver enzymes are grossly elevated, and he’s gained eight pounds. By Day 10 he is 17 pounds heavier and feeling fatigued and lethargic. At one point, his doctors (and concerned girlfriend, who’s a vegan, of all things) beg him to abandon his experiment before he requires a gastric bypass operation. (“You’re pickling your liver,” one physician remarks.) But he’s determined not to quit. Day 30 finds him forcing down “The Last McSupper” before beginning his detox diet.

Spurlock tries to balance things out a bit by interviewing nutritionists, authors, former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, Baskin-Robbins heir John Robbins (“You can’t deny these links” between poor health and garbage food, he explains) and some school kids who can identify Ronald McDonald but not George Washington or Jesus.

Super Size Me, which won the Best Director award at Sundance earlier this year, is an unnerving, highly entertaining wake-up call. It may not be the most impartial of documentaries, but it makes its point — and then some.

The happy ending? McDonald’s ended up doing away with its “super-size” meal and, the day before the film’s opening, introduced a new, “healthier” menu that includes bottled water (a genius stroke, eh?). Coincidence, Spurlock thinks. Not.

(Hillcrest Cinemas)

Winner of the Special Jury Award for Emotional Truth (I kid you not) at the Florida Film Festival, writer-director Greg Pak’s Robot Stories (*1/2) is advertised as “science fiction from the heart.” (Read: Our flick is more about feelings than special effects, since we have no budget and can’t really afford any.)

The movie takes the form of four stories: “My Robot Baby” deals with a couple seeking a child, who must first “practice” with an infant robot (a poorly designed creation that looks like Humpty Dumpty) to see if they have the makings of worthy parents; in “The Robot Fixer,” a grieving mother tries to reassemble her injured son’s toy collection as a way of bringing him out of a coma; “Machine Love” finds Sprout Desk Pal G-9 (played by writer-director Pak) taking a fancy to a female Desk Pal in the office next door; “Clay,” concerns an aging claymaker with one year left to live, who is encouraged to sign up with Forever, Inc., a company that scans patients’ brains so that they may live forever — at least in terms of their consciousness.

Sounds somewhat promising. At least one of the four has to be a winner, right? Wrong. Strangely, none of the segments does anything particularly clever or funny or even insightful. Which makes Robot Stories so much Sci-Fi Channel filler. (Hillcrest Cinemas)

Writer-director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy movies) again dips into the Universal vaults with the $150-mill-plus Van Helsing (***), an ear-splitting, action-packed thrill ride about the 19th century creature hunter (with sexy Hugh Jackman in the title role, a bit short in the charisma department this time out). A loner plagued by nightmares, Gabriel Van Helsing travels to Transylvania to do battle with Count Dracula (an overdrawn Richard Roxburgh, from Moulin Rouge), the Wolfman (totally CG), Frankenstein’s Monster (a rip-roaring turn by Broadway star Shuler Hensley) and gypsy princess Kate Beckinsale (kick-ass and gorgeous).

Taking the kitchen sink approach, Sommers mixes old serials with Errol Flynn swashbucklers, tossing in bits and pieces of everything from Tarzan and Raiders of the Lost Ark, to James Bond. (The stunning opening black and white sequence, shot by cinematographer Allen Daviau, is a true homage to the old Universal monster movies.) You may experience permanent hearing loss after seeing Van Helsing (and find ILM’s SFX terribly inconsistent), but it’s still a lot of fun. Where does Sommers get his incredible energy? (Playing citywide)

Rating System

**** a must-see

*** good

** average

* poor

BOMB (think The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking)

Kyle Counts is the film critic for the Gay and Lesbian Times