LOS ANGELES – There’s something really wrong with Hollywood if it can’t get off to a better start than it did during the dreary summer of 2005.

Last year’s first big May releases: The historical snoozer “Kingdom of Heaven” and the forgettable comedies “Kicking and Screaming” and “Monster-in-Law.”

This year’s summer lead-ins: “Mission: Impossible III,” pitting Tom Cruise against supervillain Philip Seymour Hoffman; “Poseidon,” a remake of “The Poseidon Adventure” directed by Hollywood’s king of the sea, Wolfgang Petersen (“The Perfect Storm,” “Das Boot”); the animated “Over the Hedge,” an animals-against-humans comedy from the makers of “Shrek”; and “The Da Vinci Code,” reuniting Tom Hanks with director Ron Howard.

After stumbling out of the gate last year, when summer movie attendance fell 12 percent to its lowest level since 1997, Hollywood seems to have a more crowd-pleasing lineup to lure audiences back to theaters.

A look at key summer releases:

LOOKING FOR ACTION: Tom Cruise’s first two “Mission: Impossible” capers were heavy on action and style. “Mission: Impossible III” director J.J. Abrams, creator of TV’s “Lost” and “Alias,” said he aimed to balance action with character interplay in the spirit of the television show on which the movies are based.

SUPERHEROES ON PARADE: Fighters for truth, justice and the rights of Mutant-Americans are back, led by “X-Men: The Last Stand,” the third installment in the franchise about the gang of super freaks, and “Superman Returns,” with the Man of Steel suiting up for his first big-screen adventure in almost 20 years.

SEPT. 11 TERRORIST ATTACKS: Nearly five years after Sept. 11 comes the first major wave of big-screen films dealing with the terrorist attacks.

“United 93” mostly features a cast of unknowns in a gut-wrenching docudrama about the passengers who fought back and lost their lives during one of the Sept. 11 hijackings.

ANIMATION MANIA: Featuring the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman and Bonnie Hunt, “Cars” is the latest from computer-animation pioneer John Lasseter, who directed the “Toy Story” movies. The film follows a haughty race car (Wilson) who learns to slow down and make time for friends after he’s stranded in a sleepy town.

CREEPY AND CRYPTIC: M. Night Shyamalan is back with “Lady in the Water,” which recounts the tale of an apartment manager (Paul Giamatti) who discovers a water nymph (“Village” star Bryce Dallas Howard) living beneath his complex’s pool and trying to escape creatures preventing her return to her own world.