Summer block-busters

Mr Holmes
*ing: Sir Ian Mckellen, Laura Linney and Hiroyuki Sanada
Release: July 17, 2015

Sherlock Holmes, in recent years, has made a strong comeback in popular culture. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films, starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, respectively, are strictly average.

More to the point is the award-winning Steven Moffat remake, Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock and Watson. And finally there’s the American television series, Elementary, in which Watson’s gender is female. So, you have Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu playing Sherlock and Joan Watson.

Now, Sherlock Holmes is heading to the big screen again, except this one’s promising to be radically different than all the television shows and films that have released in recent years.

The synopsis is this: the year is 1947, and an aging Sherlock Holmes (played by the magnificent Sir Ian Mckellen) with diminished power of observation returns from Japan, having witnessed nuclear warfare. The once-formidable consulting detective lives in a farmhouse and tends to his bees. For company, Sherlock relies on his housekeeper, Mrs Munro (played by Laura Linney) and a young boy, who is Mrs Munro’s son. In the trailer, it is also revealed that a case that Holmes could never solve is now back to haunt him: "Hidden in the corners of his mind lies the greatest case he never solved." Intriguing.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
*ing: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Alec Baldwin, and Rebecca Ferguson
Release: July 2015

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt in what looks like the final film in the Mission Impossible franchise. IMF, Ethan’s spy agency, is under fire, again. But this time, orders have been given to shut it down. There’s a new player in town called the Syndicate, a rogue criminal organization that is a mystery to the CIA and works as the anti-IMF. It is up to Ethan and his crew to stop the Syndicate at all costs. Alec Baldwin also joins the film’s all-star cast.

Self/less
*ing: Ryan Reynolds, Matthew Goode, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Dockery and Victor Garber
Release: July 2015

Moving away from action-packed cinema is Self/less, a film that deals with questions of immortality and death. The synopsis goes like this: A rich, successful man is dying from cancer. To save his life, this man undergoes a radical treatment; his consciousness is transferred into the body of a healthy, young man. It all goes haywire when this man discovers the origin of the body that is used for his transference and those who are willing to kill for it.

Ben Kingsley stars as Damian while his younger self is played by Ryan Reynolds. They are also joined by Matthew Goode (The Imitation Game, The Good Wife) and Alias alum Victor Garber.

Ant-Man
*ing: Paul Rudd, Hayley Atwell, Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas
Release: July 2015

Marvel, the studio behind superhero movies like the Avengers, Iron Man as well as television shows like Agent Carter, is bringing Ant-Man to life this summer.

Ant-Man is based on the famed comic series by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby and stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man: "a petty criminal who acquires an invented substance that allows him to shrink in scale but increase in strength".

Since Marvel loves to connect its films with television series, it comes as no surprise that the film also features Hayley Atwell, who is reprising her role of Peggy Carter after making appearances in Captain America films.

Paul Rudd’s turn as Ant-Man is the single greatest reason to watch this film.

Fantastic Four
*ing: have Kate Mara, Miles Teller, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordon
Release: August 2015

Another comic book adaptation to watch out for this summer will be Fantastic Four. This sci-fi superhero film is about four people who travel to an alternate universe and end up altering their physical form. The four of them must work together to save the fate of the world from a friend-turned-foe. Who doesn’t love all-or-nothing, end of the world doom-gloom?

Fantastic Four films, originally starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis have been rebooted with an all-new cast: Kate Mara, Miles Teller, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordon make up the foursome that must save the world.