Introduced in 1984, The Transformers animation series took teen viewers by storm with its compelling saga of two unearthly races of giant shape-shifting robots — the good Autobots and the bad Decepticons — whose epic intergalactic war finally reaches Planet Earth.

Twenty-three years later, action specialist Michael Bay (Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon, to name a few), alongside producer Steven Spielberg, presents the long-awaited live-action version of Transformers in what is set to become one of this summer’s biggest releases.

When rebellious teen Sam Spike (LaBeouf) buys his first car, he discovers that it happens to be Bumblebee, one of the Autobots in disguise. Sam and his girlfriend Mikaela (Fox) are both dragged with the giant robot into the war versus Megatron, the Decepticon leader, who comes back to life to take over the sources of energy on our planet. With a budget of $150 million, Transformers will likely battle it out with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Spider-Man 3 for the Oscar award for visual effects next year.

The hype for Transformers started at the latest Cannes Film Festival, which featured a big party to announce the movie’s Middle East premiere at last month’s Taormina Film Festival, held June 16-22. At the big do, rising actor LaBeouf — currently filming his role as Indiana Jones’ son alongside Harrison Ford in the long-awaited fourth outing of the series — signed with co-star Megan Fox for a Transformers sequel in 2010.

Those who were lucky enough to see the British zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead (2004), which was not released locally, will want to catch this buddy flick from co-writer and star Simon Pegg, who made his debut in American productions last summer when he co-starred in Mission: Impossible III with superstar Tom Cruise.

Hot Fuzz sees Pegg playing Sergeant Nicholas Angel, London’s number-one cop, whose superiors send him to the seemingly crime-free village of Sandford to partner with overweight police officer Butterman (Frost). Together, using a combination of unorthodox big-city methods, they must solve a series of grisly murders that rock the sleepy village.

Since 1989, the long-running TV animation-series spoofing the daily life of an American family, The Simpsons has kept viewers laughing all around the world. This summer Homer, Marge, Lisa and Bart Simpson make the leap to the cinema screen in this large-scale adventure where the funny family must save the world from a catastrophe of their own making.

In this family adventure, Roy (Lerman) is a 14-year-old boy whose family has moved to Florida. When he and his new friends learn of the schemes of a top executive who is planning to build a new restaurant in a flock of wild owls’ nest, they decide to protect the hapless birds. Luke Wilson plays the friendly policeman who comes to their aid.

Director Anthony Minghella’s new film Breaking and Entering reunites him with Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) and Jude Law (Cold Mountain) in this contemporary London story which he also wrote. After his London-based office is robbed by a young teenage Muslim youth called Miro (Rafi Gavron), up-and-coming architect Will Francis (Law) becomes attached to the boy and his single mother Amira (Binoche), a Bosnian refugee. As his relationship with his girlfriend falls apart, Will embarks on a passionate journey into both the wilder side of himself and the city in which he lives.

In his fifth year of study at Hogwarts, Harry Potter discovers that his schoolmates and professors are in denial about his encounter with the evil Lord Voldemort, played by Ralph Fiennes.

Meeting secretly with a small group of students who name themselves Dumbledore’s Army, Harry teaches them how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts, preparing the courageous young wizards for the extraordinary battle against Voldemort.

This summer’s biggest-budget local production (a staggering LE 30 million, give or take) arrives in the form of Morgan Ahmed Morgan, starring veteran actor Adel Imam. The sociopolitical comedy — which both Good News Group and the trio of Oscar / El-Nasr / El-Massa hope will take over the first weeks of the seasonal cinema stampede — will arrive before Karkar, the new offering from comedian Mohammed Saad, in July.

In a race against time, Morgan was shot, edited and released in just three short months under the direction of Aly Idris, who also helmed Imam’s successful Aris Men Geha Amneya (Husband from a Security Agency, 2004).

Imam plays the illiterate but successful businessman Morgan, who finds himself alienated from his own kids, who look up to their university teacher Jehan. When Morgan decides to run for the People’s Assembly, he finds himself drawn into a war against corrupt government officials.

Morgan will open nationwide on around 50 screens.

Previously entitled El-Lemby & Juliet, Karkar is the latest multi-personification vehicle from comic actor Mohammed Saad, who teams up once again with his favorite writer, Ahmed Abdallah, also creator of his most famous character — El-Lemby.

In Karkar, Saad, who reportedly pokes his nose insufferably into the casting, scripting and directing of all his films, will play five different characters to secure maximum screen time. One reason why Syrian beauty Sulaf Fawakherji (who made her debut in Egypt in Halim) declined to become his co-star in this romantic story was to instead focus on more important projects such as playing Rose El-Youssef in the upcoming TV serial of the same name.

Yasmine Abdel Aziz reportedly received a hefty paycheck just to react to Karkar’s jokes. The movie will be shown on about 50 screens nationwide.

This comedy sees Ahmed Adam trying to compete with the big boys. He plays a blind music teacher who becomes a wedding singer working his neighborhood in Alexandria until he falls in love with a belly dancer, played by Amira Fathy. Directed by Mohamed El-Nagar, the movie co-stars Amira El-Aidy and Lotfy Labib. Look out for the scene in which Adam spoofs Saad El-Soghayar’s famous song ‘El-Enab’ (Grapes). His imaginative take? ‘El-Kheyar’ (Cucumbers).

More multiple characters in this surefire winner: Keddah Reddah stars comedian Ahmed Helmy as Riad, a depressed young man, Radwan, a football fan, and Rady, an action movie addict.

The trio, all nicknamed Reddah, and hence the title of the film, all compete to win the heart of one beautiful girl, played by Menna Shalaby. Director Nader Galal favored the expertise of local special visual effects supervisors over traveling to Europe to finalize the post-production of the movie.

Helmy’s box-office smashes have seen solid rises in ticket sales of late, with his recent outings Matab Senai (Artificial Bump), Gaalatny Mogreman (She Made Me A Criminal) and Zarf Tarek (Unusual Circumstances) raking in LE 13 million, LE 16 million and LE 20 million respectively.

Shot between Dubai and Cairo, the new Mohamed Heneidy offering will feature the funnyman in the double role of twin brothers Fawzy and Fawaz. Fawzy is an Egypt-based barber who wants to venture into singing — hence the nickname Andaleeb El-Dokki, after the late singing sensation Halim.

But when his mother reveals to him that he has a twin brother, Fawaz decides to embark on a journey to find him in Dubai. Fawaz turns out to be an Emarati millionaire and Syrian newcomer Heba Nour plays the role of his secretary, trying to seduce him into marrying her.

Director Ihassan and star Heneidy spent five weeks shooting across Dubai with hundreds of extras and several action scenes that have Heneidy making acrobatic moves above an elephant-shaped statue.

After seriously injuring his right eye while on the set of Al-Jazeera (The Island) with director Sherif Arafa, Ahmed El-Saqqa was at press time confined to a two-month hospital stay after which he is scheduled to undergo a second round of surgery.

Taking advantage of the publicity surrounding the incident, and given that the release of The Island will likely be postponed several months, El-Saqqa’s agents decided to release the recently finished film, Taymour & Shafiqa. Shot between Cairo and the Ukraine with a budget reaching LE 13 million, the romantic adventure revolves around childhood sweethearts who grew up in Cairo. Years later, Taymour (El-Saqqa) becomes a police officer and Shafiqa (Mona Zaki) becomes a UN employee. But when she travels to the city of Yalta in the Ukraine for a routine meeting, she is kidnapped by international terrorists, prompting Taymour to rush to her rescue. et