“Harry Potter”! “Terminator”! “Night at the Museum”! “Transformers”!

If the recession-fueled box-office boom continues, the summer of ’09 will go down as one of Hollywood’s biggest ever.

The studios have positioned their brands and set their tent poles accordingly. And while there’s the usual mix of sequels, remakes, comic-book and best-seller adaptations, horror, romcoms, and stoopid teen farce, there are a number of comedies and dramas that appear grounded in the real world, too.

Add a few serious indies (new Jarmusch, Soderbergh, Dardenne Brothers) and a family-friendly offering from Japanese animation great Hayao Miyazaki (“Ponyo”), and the weeks of intensive moviegoing between May and Labor Day are looking more than promising.

So what if the robots from “Terminator Salvation” and the transformers from “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” look like they fell out of the same (digital imaging) truck, and that guy in “Terminator” and that guy in “Public Enemies” look like, well, the same guy (Christian Bale)?

There’s a good chance that we’ll end up at the movie house this summer if not hugely surprised, then at least well satisfied. Here are some of the season’s big contenders:

“Angels&Demons”: Tom Hanks reteams with director Ron Howard in their “Da Vinci Code” follow-up, with Hanks’ Harvard symbologist action-hero trolling the Vatican trying to expose a secret society (yes, another one) bent on revenge. With Ewan McGregor in priestly vestments, and some of the clunkiest dialogue this side of a Dan Brown best seller. Oh, right, it is a Dan Brown best seller.

“Terminator Salvation”: The year is 2018, humans are outnumbered by machines, and Christian Bale is looking mighty mean as John Connor, humankind’s last best post-apocalyptic hope. Can the “Terminator” franchise be resurrected? “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” director McG thinks so.

“Up”: Soaring animated adventure from Pixar fabulist Pete Docter (“Monsters, Inc.”) about a septuagenarian (voice of Christopher Plummer) who attaches balloons to his house and takes off for a tour of the South American wilds. Balloonatic or explorer?

“The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3”: This crackerjack thriller about terrorists who hijack a subway train on New York’s IRT line stars Denzel Washington as Garber, the unflappable detective (a role played by Walter Matthau in the 1974 original), who juggles hijackers and hostage crisis with gallows humor. With John Travolta and John Turturro.

“Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen”: Paris, the Pyramids, the U. S Navy –everything but Megan Fox’s makeup gets messed up by those giant metamorphosing Decepticons. Blockbuster titan Michael Bay directs.

“Cheri”: Colette’s naughtily entertaining belle epoque novel about a Parisian courtesan (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her 18- year-old consort (Rupert Friend). Brought to the screen by Stephen Frears, who previously cultivated the terror of conquest and love in “Dangerous Liaisons.”

“Public Enemies”: Michael Mann’s ’30s-era G-men-versus-gangster yarn features Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis and Johnny Depp as outlaw

John Dillinger. Some are predicting it will be the

“Scarface” for the 21st century. Channing Tatum co-stars as Pretty Boy Floyd and Billy

Crudup as FBI honcho

J. Edgar Hoover.

“Whatever Works”: Larry

David is the Woody Allen surrogate in the prolific filmmaker’s return to Manhattan (and “Manhattan’s” older guy/much younger girl theme –in this case, Evan Rachel Wood). The buzz is very good, even if the script is something Woody pulled out of his desk drawer –he wrote it back in the ’70s.

“Bruno”: Sacha Baron Cohen as a flaming Austrian fashionista who conquers America. The film’s subtitle says it all: “Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt.” Can it tweak as many people as “Borat”?

“Harry Potter and the Half- Blood Prince”: It’s dark times, mad times for magic boy Potter in the sixth installment of the J. K. Rowling series, this one directed by Brit-TV guy David Yates. The world of Hogwarts and the world of London collide, as Lord Voldemort’s past is dug up and wispy coal-black spirits streak the sky.

“The Ugly Truth”: Lovely Katherine Heigl as an unaccountably loveless TV producer who spars with hunky Gerard Butler, her no-account on-air talent. As this is a rom-com, we’re assuming the sparring produces romantic sparks.

“Funny People”: Judd Apatow dramedy about a stand-up legend (Adam Sandler) who gets a cancer diagnosis and an apostle (Seth Rogen), and belatedly reconnects with the girl that got away (Leslie Mann).

“Julie&Julia”: Of her double portrait of master chef Julia Child and apprentice Julie Powell, who learned her way around the stove by faithfully following Child’s canonical cookbook, director Nora Ephron saucily observes: “The movie poster should say ‘Starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and boeuf bourguignon.’ ”

“Taking Woodstock”: Oscarwinner Ang Lee time-travels back to the Summer of Love in this comedic look at the historic counterculture musicfest and a young local (Demetri Martin) trying to save his family’s run-down motel. And then several hundred thousand hippies show up ...

“Inglourious Basterds”: So Quentin Tarantino can’t spell, but maybe he can make a great World War II pic. Brad Pitt is the cigarchompin’ U. S. Army lieutenant who leads a pack of Jewish soldiers on a let’s-get-the-Nazis hunt through occupied France.