Check out what's showing at cinemas across the region this June...

JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH CERT 12a (134 mins)
Released Wed 2 July
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Rupert Friend, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein
Directed by Gareth Edwards

Cinemagoers just can't get enough of dinosaurs. Three years after the Jurassic World trilogy concluded (with each film netting in excess of a cool $1billion at the global box office), the series is this month making yet another return. 

Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet's ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments. The three most colossal creatures within the tropical biosphere hold, in their DNA, the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life­saving benefits to humankind. 

Covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) is contracted to lead a skilled team on a top-secret mission to secure the genetic material. When Zora's operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized by marauding aquatic dinos, they all find themselves stranded on a forbidden island that had once housed an undisclosed research facility for Jurassic Park. 

There, in a terrain populated by dinosaurs of vastly different species, they come face-to­face with a sinister, shocking discovery that has been hidden from the world for 
decades ... 

HOT MILK CERT 15 (92 mins)
Released Fri 4 July
Starring Emma Mackey, Vicky Krieps, Fiona Shaw, Vincent Perea, Yann Gael, Patsy Ferran
Directed by Rebecca Lenkiewicz 

Screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz here takes the helm for her directorial debut. Much admired for penning screenplays about simmering female discontent and rebellion -think Disobedience (2017), She Said (2022) and the Oscar-winning Ida (2013) - Lenkiewicz oversees the story of a cantankerous and wheelchair-dependent woman, Rose, and her daughter, Sofia, as they journey to a Spanish clinic in search of a cure for the mother's mysterious illness. With trouble brewing in their relationship and Rose undergoing treatment, Sofia finds an unexpected but welcome distraction from reality in the form of the sensual and free­spirited Ingrid...
The film is adapted from the same-named 2016 novel by Deborah Levy.

SUPERMAN CERT 12a (130 mins)
Released Fri 11 July
Starring David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Maria Gabriela de Faria, Skyler Gisondo
Directed by James Gunn

Look! Up on the screen. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's another Superman reboot! This latest attempt to redefine the most famous superhero of them all sees David Corenswet stepping into the spandex, with Marvelous Mrs Maisel star Rachel Brosnahan getting on board as Superman's on-off romantic interest Lois Lane. The UK's very own Nicholas Hoult plays the Last Son of Krypton's arch nemesis, Lex Luthor. 

The first film to be released under the DC Studios banner, Superman is being described as a singular blend of epic action, humour and heart, delivering a Man of Steel who's driven 'by compassion and an inherent belief in the goodness of humankind'. 

James Gunn directs from his own screenplay. Gunn has previously enjoyed superhero success with Marvel Cinematic Universe's Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy and - to a lesser extent, in 2021 - DC Comics' The Suicide Squad.

FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE CERT 12a (125 mins)
Released Fri 18 July
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, Gabriel Byrne, Donal Finn, Olwen Fouere, Michelle Lucy
Directed by Polly Steele

The path to true love proves far from smooth for Nicholas and Isabel, whose family lives are challenging in the extreme. 

Nicholas' father, William (Pierce Brosnan), comes home one day to shatter his family's quiet life, informing them that in a moment of divine intervention, God has instructed him to dedicate his life to painting. He quits his job and sets off for the coast, leaving his shellshocked wife and son to fend for themselves. 
Meanwhile, Isabel and her family live a charmed existence on a nearby island. When tragedy strikes and her brother suffers a terrible accident, Isabel's parents (Helena Bonham Carter, Gabriel Byrne) decide in their grief to send her to a convent school on the mainland. 

The young lovers embark on their own individual journeys of heartache and misplaced love, before fate contrives to pull the threads of their lives together ...
 
Based on Niall Williams' bestselling novel. 

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER CERT 15 (125 mins)
Released Fri 18 July
Starring Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon
Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson 

Just as concerns were growing that the slasher-film genre had had its day, along came I Know What You Did Last Summer in 1997 to breathe fresh life into it. Although given a mixed reception by the critics, the film was a major commercial success and quickly achieved cult status. It has since inspired a couple of sequels and, more recently, a television series ... 

This latest offering focuses on five friends who inadvertently cause a deadly car accident. Covering up their involvement, they make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences. But one year later, their past comes back to haunt them, forcing them to confront a horrifying truth: somebody not only knows what they did last summer but is also hell-bent on revenge ... 

SMURFS CERT U (92 mins)
Released Fri 18 July
With the voices of Rihanna, John Goodman, Hannah Waddingham, Natasha Lyonne, James Corden, Sandra O
Directed by Chris Miller

The Smurfs - anthropomorphic beings who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest - were all the rage here in the UK back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, not least because of the success of The Smurf Song. Released in the summer of 1978, the near-chart-topping number was memorably performed by a Santa Claus lookalike named Father Abraham. 

But the curious little blue creatures have a history which stretches back to the 1950s, when they were created by Peyo (the pen name of Belgian comic-book artist Pierre Culliford). Their global popularity in the ensuing decades has rarely waned, and this new movie looks set to give Smurfmania a significant boost - particularly as Rihanna is lending her voice to the project (playing the character of Smurfette). She’s joined for the endeavour by John Goodman, James Corden and Sandra Oh

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS CERT U (92 mins)
Released Thurs 24 July
Starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ralph Ineson, Julia Garner 
Directed by Matt Shakman

As with DC Comics’ Superman (see the page opposite), Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four is being rebooted this year. 

After a couple of okayish big-screen outings in 2005 and 2007, and then an execrable Marvel Cinematic Universe offering in 2015, Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing find themselves battling against planet-devouring space god Galactus and his metallic-skinned herald, the Silver Surfer. 

First Steps’ storyline - which unravels against the backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world - is being billed as the titular quartet’s ‘most daunting challenge yet’. But if rumours about the film’s quality prove to be true, distributor Disney may well have a ‘daunting challenge’ of its very own to deal with... In a recent public test screening in Los Angeles, the movie apparently received a less-than-enthusiastic response, with media sources claiming that audience members slammed the film for its lack of character development and questionable CGI usage. 

Late-stage reshoots have been taking place; never a good sign.