Buckle up. It's going to be a big summer of cinema.
Summer: Once it was a time for sipping cocktails on the lawn, nibbling cucumber sandwiches and playing the occasional game of lawn tennis.
Nowadays it is blockbuster season, with barely a week passing between one action-packed star vehicle and the next. Who needs sunshine? It gives you skin cancer. Shun the great outdoors and join us at the multiplex as we check out the unmissable movies of the season...
Iron Man 2
Ironclad superhero Tony Stark is back to save the world again. This time the big baddie is Mickey Rourke, looking very much like he did in The Wrestler, only this time with a homemade exoskeleton and electric whips attacked to his arms. The poster also promises Scarlett Johansson in a leather catsuit, so it can't be all bad.
Four Lions
Master provocateur Chris Morris's long awaited debut movie is a comedy about four British jihadists following their dreams of glory. That's right folks, it's a slapstick comedy about terrorism and that is a crow with an explosive strapped to it. Could be even more controversial than Morris's notorious Brass Eye Paedophilia Special.
Nightmare On Elm Street
Or, Freddy got rebooted. The lumbering old horror franchise gets a fresh lick of paint and a new Freddy Krueger in the form of Jackie Earle Haley, AKA Rorschach from Watchmen. As before, he's the razor fingered psycho who haunts your dreams. Your only defence is coffee and Pro-Plus.
Robin Hood
Gladiator dream team Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott combine for another historical-mythical epic. Crowe is the outlaw hero of Sherwood (hey, at least he can do the English accent) and Cate Blanchett is his Maid Marian. The trailer suggests a solid two hours of epic battles punctuated by Russell going "raaargh!" But we're fine with that.
Prince Of Persia
With the Bioshock movie still languishing in development, could Prince of Persia be the movie that finally takes video game adaptations into the mainstream? Jake Gylenhaal is the ledge-hopping, time-bending hero prince, with Gemma Arterton as his feisty girlfriend. And golly, is that Mike "Four Weddings and a Funeral" Newell in the director's chair?
Sex And The City 2
Rumour has it Posh Spice will be making a cameo in this, the inevitable sequel to 2008's shoes'n'shopping blockbuster. New York clothes horse Carrie Bradshaw and her lunching lady friends are back, sharing the screen with a roll call of familiar faces that includes Liza Minnelli, Penelope Cruz and Mariah Carey.
Shrek Forever After
Previously known as Shrek goes fourth, the newly-titled toon suggests that Dreamworks might be calling it a day with the adventures of the grumpy ogre and his donkey pal. This time Shrek (Mike Myers) finds himself in a parallel world where the events of the first movie - meeting Princess Fiona, defeating Lord Farquad and so on - never happened.
Knight & Day
Tom Cruise! Cameron Diaz! Doing spy stuff! A mouth-watering prospect, we think you'll agree, although the height difference between the two stars may force the filmmakers to use Lord of the Rings-style forced perspective to get them in the same shot. The plot sees Cruise and Diaz as an unlikely fugitive couple racing to protect a super-powerful battery. Um, OK...
Inception
Leonardo DiCaprio plus Dark Knight director Chris Nolan equals blockbuster gold. Inception is described as a thriller "set within the architecture of the mind", and details are still sketchy, but a trailer full of morphing buildings and wall-bouncing gunfights suggests that we could have a Matrix-killer on our hands.
Toy Story 3
Toy Story 2 is one of those rare sequels that actually improved on the original film. Can the Pixar boffins raise the bar again for the third instalment? We wouldn't put it past them. This time Woody, Buzz and the gang get themselves trapped in a daycare centre at the mercy of giant preschoolers. And it'll be in 3D, of course.
The A-Team
If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, perhaps you can hire... The A team! Hollywood's never-ending quest to mine the dregs of TV nostalgia continues unabated with an action-heavy remake of the old Saturday tea-time favourite. Liam Neeson is Hannibal Smith, a very strange casting decision. Surely George Clooney was born for this one?
The Adjustment Bureau
Based on a brain-twisting short story by Philip K Dick, this tale sees politician Matt Damon struggling to change his own fate after catching a glimpse of the future. The film is actually a sci-fi romance, as the future Damon is trying to recapture involves his life with Emily Blunt's beautiful ballerina.
The Karate Kid
Remake time! The 1980s chopsockey classic relocates to Beijing, where recently relocated Jaden "Son of Will" Smith finds himself the victim of a local bully. Fortunately martial arts master Mr Han (Jackie Chan!) is on hand to teach him about enlightenment and roundhouse kicking.
Twilight: Eclipse
Winsome tweeny vampires again. This time round our heroine Bella Swann faces a choice between her drippy bloodsucking lover Edward and her hunky werewolf pal Jacob. Plus she has a string of unsolved murders to solve. What's a girl to do? We suspect her solution will be to dress in muted colours and pout a lot.
Predators
The brainchild of producer Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror), this sequel ignores the tiresome Alien Vs Predator flicks, purporting to be a direct sequel to the original films. Following a similar path to Aliens, the movie sees a gang of elite warriors including Laurence Fishburne and, erm, Adrien Brodie stuck on an alien planet and hunted by dreadlocked nasties.
The Last Airbender
Bit of a change of pace for twistmeister M Night Shyamalan: the Last Airbender is a live action fantasy epic based on a children's TV cartoon. It follows the adventures of Aang, a young "bender" (yeah, yeah, we know) who can control the element of air. He's on a quest to find a waterbender who can help bring peace to his war-torn elemental world.
The Expendables
Sylvester Stallone has assembled an extraordinary team of crusty action heroes for his gung-ho mercenary blockbuster. Sly himself , Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis, all in the same film? With a cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger? It's going to be a 1980s theme party with explosions.
Salt
"Who is Salt?" goes the tagline. Well, originally Salt was Tom Cruise, but he pulled out because of other commitments, so now Salt is Angelina Jolie, playing a CIA officer on the run from her own bosses after someone accuses her of being a Russian spy. A solid looking guns'n'explosions flick from reliable action director Philip Noyce.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
With impeccable timing, Oliver Stone revisits his tale of money hungry stockbrokers. This time, old Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is the only one who can see the looming financial meltdown. Charlie Sheen is back too, along with white hot newbie stars Shia Laboeuf and Carey Mulligan.
Tron: Legacy
A treat for sci-fi fans of a certain age, this long-awaited sequel sees Jeff Bridges reprising his role as a computer programmer caught in his own system, with Garrett Hedlund taking on action man duties as his son. Expect light cycle races and those excellent neon Frisbee thingies in abundance.
Source: Paul Arendt, MSN Movies
