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Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (MAY)

End. How appropriate that this word made it into the title of the third Pirates movie. Not so much because people will be wondering whether this is indeed the last entry in the franchise, but because they’ll be praying that this film has a satisfying conclusion, a good ending.

The lack of an ending was the major knock against the second film, Dead Man’s Chest, not that fans paid much attention to the criticism, giving the movie more than a billion of their dollars worldwide.

Those fans will surely be back to see if Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), who was swallowed up by the Kracken at the end of the last movie, is really dead (yeah, right) or whether he can be saved by his pals Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) who, as we saw in the waning moments of Dead Man’s Chest, have teamed with the once villainous Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to get Sparrow back. The band of ragged pirates then takes on an axis of evil made up of Lord Beckett, Admiral Norrington and Davy Jones who are wreaking havoc on the high seas at the behest of the East India Trading Company. Plus, there’s an ominous new figure making trouble, the brutal Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat). Finally, everyone heads to the edge of the map, World’s End, where they engage in an epic battle to preserve the very future of the pirating way of life.

Oh, and look for Keith Richards to finally make his appearance as Jack’s dad. We hear it’s an intoxicating performance…or was it intoxicated?

Knocked Up (JUNE)

Expect Universal to take full advantage of the “From the people who brought you…” line in the ads and trailers for this broad comedy, since the end of that line is “…The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

Although the characters are all different, the tone remains the same in this cliché-busting comedy about the perils of modern sex and dating.

Vancouver’s own Seth Rogen, who played Steve Carell’s friend Cal in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, is a dishevelled slacker named Ben who is fortunate enough to have a one-night stand with gorgeous — and way out of his league — journalist Alison (Grey’s Anatomy’s Katherine Heigl). But Ben’s good fortune runs out when he learns Alison’s pregnant and having the baby. Other Virgin alum who scored roles include Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, while the film is written, produced and directed by Virgin’s very clever Judd Apatow.

Briefly

JUNE - Evan Almighty:

Steve Carell will go up against Knocked Up and his old friends from The 40-Year-Old Virgin with a comedy of his own in June, the sequel to the popular Jim Carrey movie Bruce Almighty. As you may have guessed, this time it’s Carell’s character (who most thought stole the first film as the possessed TV news anchor) who — now a congressman — is visited by God (Morgan Freeman) and told to build an ark.

JULY - Transformers:

Look for the value of your poseable, plastic toys from the ’80s to skyrocket with the release of this first big-budget thriller about the Transformers’ arrival on Earth. Turns out some of them are trying to help us, and some of them are trying to hurt us. But all you really need to know about the objective of this film is that it’s directed by blast-master Michael Bay (The Island, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon).