Hero: Arnold Schwarzenegger, aka Big Arnie, aka the Austrian Oak, bestrode the action flick like a chafing-thighed colossus through 19 movies grossing almost £1.5 billion, starting with Conan the Barbarian in 1981. His laudably witty attempt to lampoon his own image in The Last Action Hero found little favour with public or critics. Now busy saving California instead. Will he be back?

Near-o: Sly Stallone as Rambo (not to be confused with the French poet); Dolph Lundgren, the one-man Aryan Blitzkrieg behind Universal Soldier and The Punisher; Steven Segal who, in Under Siege, is the only chef who could beat Gordon Ramsay in a fight; “The Muscles from Brussels”, Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Zero: The former wrestler Hulk Hogan. Mr Nanny?! Muppets in Space?! Enough said.

NEW MUSCLE

Hero: The Rock. Real name Dwayne, but are you going to be the one to make fun of that? Big Arnie explicitly passed his hard- man baton to the former WWF wrestler in The Rundown: “Have fun,” said he, in a knowing cameo. Got a record $5.5m for his first leading-man role in The Scorpion King; his latest, Walking Tall, is out this week (see review); and he has finished shooting the sequel to Elmore Leonard ’s Get Shorty, Be Cool, with John Travolta. Most famous raised eyebrow since Roger Moore.

Near-o: Vin Diesel, star of The Fast and the Furious and xXx, has fallen from favour, something that The Chronicles of Riddick, here next month, is unlikely to change.

Zero: The Hulk. Maybe it’s because the CGI behemoth’s movements were modelled on the skinny director, Ang Lee.

REGULAR GUYS

Hero: Bruce Willis. Toppled Arnie’s dominance at a stroke with Die Hard (1988), coining a new, vulnerable kind of hero two years before Gazza cried at the World Cup. Used the same ordinary-joe- in-extraordinary-circumstances persona in the sci-fi movies Twelve Monkeys, Armageddon, The Fifth Element and Unbreakable. Soon to be seen in Die Hard 4 and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, based on the Frank Miller comic.

Near-o: Will Smith. The wisecracking (fresh) prince of the blockbuster (Independence Day, Men in Black, Bad Boys) has had one out-and-out turkey, Wild Wild West — and please, no more spin-off singles. His latest, I, Robot, is out next month.

Zero: Brendan Fraser. His treasure hunter in the Mummy series came on like Indiana Jones after a personality bypass.

PRETTY, VACANT