Drive Angry 3D
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner, Billy Burke, David Morse, Tom Atkins
Director: Patrick Lussier
Release Date: 25 February 2011

Milton (Cage) has broken out of hell on a mission of revenge, to prevent the cult that murdered his daughter from sacrificing her baby. He’s joined by a waitress (Heard) who steals her ex-boyfriend’s cherry-red muscle car to help him. Soon the Devil has sent his right hand man (Fichtner) to put the breaks on Milton. This is from the writer/director team behind My Bloody Valentine 3D. That movie was well received despite being horribly written. This time they may come unstuck. Cage seems to be taking money advice from his barber and hair advice from his accountant.

World Invasion: Battle LA
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Peña, Bridget Moynahan
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Release Date: 11 March 2011

A Marine platoon faces off against an alien invasion in Los Angeles. The director of Darkness Falls and T’ C’ Massacre: The Beginning is shooting in the Saving Private Ryan handheld style. Hopefully this will be the [Black Hawk Down (plus) Independence Day (minus) Jokes] it promises. Think large alien ships, similar to a Borg cube / Klingon war bird, shooting helicopters out of the sky, and 8 foot bi-ped creatures street-fighting with the army. The Comic-Con footage went down well. The movie’s probably fairly good as it put Liebesman in the running for the Superman job.

Sucker Punch
Starring: Emily Browning, Jon Hamm, Vanessa Hudgens
Director: Zack Snyder
Release Date: 25 March 2011

The first original movie from slow-mo supremo Zack Snyder. The director of the Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen and that owl movie is taking us inside the mind of Babydoll, a young woman committed to to a mental institution who creates a fantastic imaginary world to escape to. Snyder’s visual flair looks intact, and his female ensemble cast looks pretty kick ass hot insane. This is Snyder’s last chance to prove he can do good character work before he directs the Superman reboot.

Haywire
Starring: Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Release Date: 22 April 2011

A freelance black ops soldier (played by real life MMA fighter Gina Carano) finds herself double crossed on a mission in Dublin. Now she must use all her skills to escape an international manhunt, make it back to the US and exact revenge on those that have betrayed her. The plot is very standard (a female Bourne Identity at best) but the fresh-faced lead, a terrific supporting cast and Soderbergh directing action could turn this into something worth seeing.

Fast Five (Fast & Furious 5)
Starring: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson
Director: Justin Lin
Release Date: 29 April 2011

Fast & Furious (4) felt like a last role of the dice for Vin Diesel’s career as a leading man, but it paid off huge at the box office. So now he’s sticking around to be joined by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and the co-star of 2 Fast 2 Furious, Tyrese Gibson. The plot sees former cop Brian (Walker) and Mia (Brewster) break Dom out of custody and flee to Brazil where they must pull one last job to gain their freedom. But a hard-nosed federal agent (Johnson) is on their trail. The director handled the previous two instalments so you can expect much of the same, with a bit of samba.

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