The key buzzword for 2009 has, so far, been "rapid growth." As in "there has been rapid growth in the size of unemployment lines" and "there has been rapid growth in the poor and starving sector." To put it bluntly, job prospects have been bleak for pretty much everyone. But what impact has this year had on our summer movie heroes? While some have taken the hit, others are bucking the odds and flourishing. Check out who falls where...

Christian Bale
Last Summer: The Dark Knight
This Summer: Terminator Salvation, Public Enemies
Upgrade or Downgrade? Downgrade. Dark Knight scored in every way a movie can score. Critics loved it. Audiences loved it. The Academy loved it. Even the geeks loved it. It made a billion dollars, for cryin' out loud. Anything is a let down compared to that. But it goes to show how high Bale set the bar—for any other actor, Terminator and Enemies would be a knockout summer line-up.

Channing Tatum
Last Summer: NA
This Summer: G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, Public Enemies
Upgrade or Downgrade? Upgrade. G.I. Joe looks like a bag of suck, but at least Tatum's balancing it with the surefire critical hit Public Enemies. We can't fault the guy for signing up to play Duke. We'd do the same thing (and we wouldn't bother to read the script first, either), and going from nada to these two movies in the same summer is big.

Ben Stiller
Last Summer: Tropic Thunder
This Summer: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Upgrade or Downgrade? Downgrade. Tropic Thunder was an adult comedy with some edge. The Night sequel is like trying to top a scoop of vanilla ice cream with fat-free vanilla ice cream. Still, Night will make a killing and Stiller will forget ever trying to make a movie for his age group ever again.

Shia LaBeouf
Last Summer: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
This Summer: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Upgrade or Downgrade? Upgrade. On paper, signing on for an Indiana Jones movie seems like a dream come true—too bad it was that Indiana Jones movie. And Shia would have been one of the worst things in Crystal Skull, if not for the CGI gophers and monkeys. Transformers 2 may be lunkheaded, but it'll be fun and watchable. That's an upgrade.

Seth Rogen
Last Summer: Kung-Fu Panda, Pineapple Express
This Summer: Funny People
Upgrade or Downgrade? Upgrade. Look, Pineapple was great, but his "role" in Kung Fu Panda could have been played by a Seth Rogen soundboard. At least Funny People, with its mix of comedy and drama, is asking the burly Canuck to actually act. It might not make the combined bank of last summer, but it's a step forward for Rogen.

Anton Yelchin
Last Summer: NA
This Summer: Star Trek, Terminator Salvation
Upgrade or Downgrade? Upgrade, spelled thusly: U-P-G-R-A-Y-E-D-D, with two "Ds" for a double-dose of this pimpin'. This kid has gone from "Anton Who?" to, well, the same question...only now we have an answer: "The kid who played the young Chekov and the young Kyle Reese in the same summer." But make no mistake, this is Anton's Shia LaBeouf moment, so let's see if he seizes it. It might not get bigger than this.

Will Ferrell
Last Summer: Step Brothers
This Summer: Land of the Lost
Upgrade or Downgrade? Neither. The last time Ferrell stretched was when he pulled a hammy. This is a man calmly coasting on his ability to play idiot manchildren. No points for not trying.

Danny McBride
Last Summer: The Foot Fist Way, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder
This Summer: Land of the Lost
Upgrade or Downgrade? Downgrade. No way you can top a line-up like the one McBride had in 2008. Three solid, adult comedies followed by one long SNL parody-posing-as-a-movie? C'mon, Danny. You're better than that. Sit down with Jody Hill and work on a Foot Fist sequel, at least.