When you hear "Las Vegas movie," you think of something like Ocean's Eleven or 21, where the setting is crucial to the film. Most movies that use Sin City do so because their plots center around gambling, showgirls, or the Mafia. After all, why shoot in Vegas -- hot, ugly, tacky Vegas -- if you don't have to?

But every now and then a movie will use Las Vegas as a backdrop without really being about Las Vegas. Herewith, seven flicks that give you a taste of the Entertainment Capital of the World without drowning you in it.

The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)
The Nevada desert setting was needed for this schlocky B-movie because that's where the U.S. military did its bomb testing. The story is about a soldier who gets radiated and grows to be 50 feet tall, whereupon he stomps around Las Vegas and the nearby Hoover Dam. Today, the film is best remembered for being featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Corvette Summer (1978)
It's the answer to a trivia question: What was Mark Hamill's first movie after Star Wars made him famous? It was this negligible comedy in which he plays a Los Angeles teen whose beloved car is stolen and taken to Las Vegas. Hamill goes in pursuit; hilarity ensues.

Over the Top (1987)
Who could forget the climactic finale, which occupies a full 30 minutes of the 90-minute movie, in which Sylvester Stallone participates in a harrowing arm-wrestling tournament in Las Vegas? In the movies and in real life, Sin City is frequently the setting for competitions involving sports that aren't really sports -- fitting for a city that pretends to be glamorous without actually being glamorous.

Rain Man (1988)
Most of this Oscar-winning, oft-quoted film is set elsewhere in America -- all over the place, in fact, as the story involves a cross-country road trip. But Raymond and Charlie, played by Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, memorably stop in Las Vegas for one sequence, where Charlie takes advantage of Raymond's unusual skills to do some card-counting at the blackjack table.

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992)
In the summer of 1992 came this Las Vegas flop, a sequel to Disney's Honey I Shrunk the Kids. This time, a toddler is "blown up" (that is, enlarged) to an unreasonable size and wreaks havoc in Las Vegas. Was the Vegas setting a nod to The Amazing Colossal Man? Possibly. Alas, being a family film, they couldn't end this one the same way, i.e., with the toddler being shot at by the Army and plunging to his presumed death in the Colorado River.

Pay It Forward (2000)
This is a very rare thing: a movie about people who just happen to live in Las Vegas. (It's an actual city, you know. Normal people live there.) Famous at the time for being Haley Joel Osment's first film after The Sixth Sense, it's now known for being a shamelessly manipulative and superficial tearjerker. But with Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Jon Bon Jovi, at least it had a great cast.

Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
The most recent edition in the videogame-based horror series is set in a post-apocalyptic future where Las Vegas is mostly destroyed and buried under sand -- the way God intended it. Disappointingly, the film wastes the Vegas setting, as Milla Jovovich's battles with the zombie hordes are all outdoors, with no rampages through abandoned casinos or anything like that.

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