Top 10 Biggest Movie of 2009

My selection of the 10 most exciting blockbuster films for the year ahead

1: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July)



Harry Potter fans will already have a fairly good idea of what happens in this, the sixth film in the hugely popular boy wizard film adapted from JK Rowling’s all-conquering books. It was an early script draft of this film that prompted Rowling to ‘out’ Dumbledore while promoting the final Potter book

2: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May)



Hugh Jackman’s back for an X-Men prequel set 17 years before the action of the first movie.The film traces the early career of Logan, the indestructible mutant who will one day be X-Man Wolverine. Cameos from future X-Men and the chance to see how Logan acquired his deadly claws and curious hairdo give the film a geek power that will set the internet buzzing ahead of the premiere. It will be interesting to see how this performs after the third X-Men movie was seen by many to be something of a mis-step in the X-franchise

3: Terminator Salvation (June)



The long-awaited ‘future war’ segment of the Terminator saga, previously only hinted at in the first three movies, dominates proceedings in Charlie’s Angels director McG’s bold reawakening of the killer robot franchise. Christian Bale, fresh from his spectacular triumph as one fanboy hero in Dark Knight essays another - John Connor, charismatic leader of the anti-Skynet forces who the Terminators have been trying to eliminate for the last three films. Roland Kickinger will be the principal Terminator this because Arnold Schwarzenegger is said to be too busy running California to appear as the iconic cyborg killing machine and Anton Yelchin, Sam Worthington and Helena Bonham-Carter are along for the ride.

4: Monsters vs. Aliens (April)



A CGI mock-B-movie with a distinctly eclectic cast list - Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Laurie, and Stephen Colbert lend their voices., Monsters v Aliens will go some of the way towards sating the enormous demand for a second Incredibles movie. Reese Witherspoon provides the voice of a young Californian woman who grows to gigantic size, after a freak meteorite encounter, and is recruited into a secret agency of super-freaks who are sent to battle a gigantic alien robot

5: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (June)



The inevitable sequel to last year’s surprise hit features more action, more laughs, and more shape-shifting robots. Michael Bay and Shia LeBoef return as director and star respectively with the astoundingly attractive Megan Fox as Shia’s love interest, a more international battleground and the eagerly anticipated introduction of fan favourite Soundwave

6: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (July)



Playing fast and loose with the accepted chronology of the age of the dinosaurs this third instalment of the CGI school holiday favourite has the primitive mammal heroes of the first two films somehow getting mixed up with a ‘lost world’ of surviving dinosaurs trapped beneath a glacier. John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, and Denis Leary provide voices for the computer created critters. Certain to both entertain undemanding under-fives and infuriate palaeontologists in equal measure, this has the air of being the last film in the series.

7: G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (August)



G.I Joe is a bigger name in the US: the toy line that we called Action Man gave rise to a popular 1980s cartoon series and long-running comics franchise. Without the solid bed of nostalgia that will give it a running start in its homeland, the movie’s appeal over here stands or falls on its star director – Stephen Sommers from the enjoyably silly Mummy films - and stellar cast, including Christopher Eccleston and Sienna Miller as well as Sommers’s old Mummy pals Brendan Fraser and Arnold Vosloo. If August 2009 is as much of a washout as 2008’s, summer legions of staycationers will be flocking to cinemas looking for some easygoing escapism, and this might just be it.

8: Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian (May)



A repeat of 2006’s ‘museum comes to life’ cameo jamboree with more or less everyone except Robin Williams back at the end of May to ham it up for the entertainment of young and undemanding cinemagoers. The film will need something very special in terms of advance reviews to give it any commercial visibility in what promises to be a very busy month at the movies. Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson and Ricky Gervais are already crossing their fingers.

9: Spy Hunter



Video game adaptations are rarely beloved of the cinema cognoscenti and there’s little likelihood that Spy Hunter will break that honourable tradition. The game is a fairly routine ‘heavily armed spy and supercar’ adventure distinguished only by a voice and motion capture contribution from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson who, one imagines, must be favourite to play the lead in what we can safely assume will be an undemanding popcorner. Englishman Paul WS Anderson, of Alien vs Predator and Resident Evil fame, is slated to direct.

10: Planet 51 (November)



A classic 1950s B-Movie plot – alien lands among the white picket fences of a fearful, simple small-town community. The twist is that the alien is an Earthly astronaut and the small town folk are little green men. A promising CG-animated caper for younger cinemagoers in the 2009 Christmas holiday