Amph The Trailer Park: The Three Stooges (2012)

Prometheus -- Jury's out. This trailer is certainly focusing on quick CG fx and the relation to the Alien movies. It should be epic. But Scott's comments about this film have been 60s pseudosciencey enough to have me concerned.

This Means War -- Might be amusing, and I like all three leads, but my guess is we've got another Mr and Mrs Smith on our hands.

Battleship -- Very clearly pandering to the Transformers crowd. Hasbro property, alien invasion tech, Steve Jablonsky score. I'm sure it'll be exactly what Transformers fans need to tide them over to the next film in that franchise.

The Dictator -- Trailer doesn't look funny. Only laugh for me was the race bit at the end.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance -- Can't take Cage seriously, but Neveldine and Taylor might just salvage this.

To me, we've got one potential win, one fail, and three that I can take or leave.

 

My question to Scott about Prometheus: why act so coy about it being an Alien prequel? Ok, so it's not about people being chased around by monsters in an enclosed space. We get that. But it's an Alien prequel.

 

From the descriptions floating around, Prometheus is abit more ambitious than that.

But yes, it's clearly being sold as an Alien prequel, and FWIW hearing the shrieky sirens and seeing the Space Jockey ship and the Pilot's little command module were some of my favorite damn trailer moments this year.

 

Prometheus

Didn't know this was an Alien prequel; the trailer doesn't exactly make that clear either, which is odd and interesting. Though I do think it borrows that musical drone from the original Alien trailer. Or am I thinking of something else? Regardless, interesting, oblique trailer.

Spy vs Spy

Oh, God, save us. I mean, yes, Pine and Hardy both have charisma. And, yes, I actually did laugh at Pine's delivery of "Make it rain." But, boy, does this look like utter nonsense or what? Also, Reese Witherspoon may not have sufficient charisma for this role. And something tells me that if these guys started just kicking each other all over fancy restaurants, they wouldn't be CIA employees for very much longer. Also, isn't the CIA prohibited from operating domestically? Okay, it's official; I've now thought about this movie more than anyone involved with it has.

Battleship

Best part is when Liam Neeson says, "I've never seen anyone waste himself as well as you," or words to that effect. And I'm thinking: "You're Liam Neeson. In a movie based on the board game Battleship. Only with aliens. I would be careful throwing around aspersions about people wasting themselves, all right?" I mean, seriously. This looks absolutely dreadful.

The Dictator

Spectacularly unfunny. HAR HAR let's make a Kardashian joke no one's heard one of those for like thirty seconds HAR HAR. The only funny bit was the race gag at the end and I saw it coming as soon as I saw he was holding the gun. And if Cohen really had balls, he'd have popped that guy right in the head, not the leg, but whatever. This will doubtless be controversial as people once again take offense at the 'racial humor' in the film. Whatever; just don't go see it. I know I'm not.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Didn't see the original, but I could see some good action glimmering here. But how cliched is this trailer? Well, the girl says, "I'm not afraid of you," and then we get some quick explosive inserts and then, in exact unison with Cage, I said, "YOU SHOULD BE." That's how cliched it is.

That was fun, man.

 

I just really, really, really want to hear Liam Neeson saying "Damn, you sunk my battleship"

 

And here are some more:

The Darkest Hour(2011)

Man on a Ledge(2012)

Big Miracle(2012)

And last, but certainly not least:

The Hunger Games(2012)

Wins or Fails?

 

The Darkest Hour

Huh. Not bad, actually. I saw a couple of posters for this and didn't think I cared about this one at all. I kind of sparked in interest when the cop got disintegrated and from there the trailer, which had started out very generically, kept getting better. Better an invisible alien than a huge CGI one and the whole invisible thing, as well as what looks like some limitations on the ways the aliens see, could lead to some great suspense sequences. Could be interesting; the cast doesn't look great, but this trailer has me thinking there could be some good moments here. But, dang, even the dogs? That's just cold.

Man on a Ledge

I thought this was going to be the movie with Charlie Hunnam about a guy on a ledge. I was wrong. I hunted up the trailer for that one and it's a way better trailer and looks like a way more interesting movie than this one. This one didn't do a thing for me.

Big Miracle

Well, on the one hand, it looks like a typical, heartstring tugging movie about how if we all just come together and forget our differences we can . . . save the whales or something. On the other hand, that's a pretty good cast, except, possibly, for Barrymore. And there were a couple of surprising moments in the trailer; the Governor shaking hands with that blue whale was pretty clever and funny and I'll admit the big money shot of the diver dwarfed by the whales was pretty awesome. I doubt I'll see this, but it looks like it could possibly be better than most movies of its type.

The Hunger Games

So this is the series everyone's been telling me to read for like the last fifty years (or does it just feel like it's been that long?). Well, okay; it's a clear trailer - it sets up the tone and luckily there's a plot that can be easily summed up in two sentences. It also doesn't really tell you much of anything beyond the basic set up, which is nice. Doesn't look like my thing, but whatever.

 

The Hunger Games will live or die on whether or not Wes Bentley's facial hair is genius or insanity. I haven't decided yet, so I'm feeling decidedly ambiguous about the trailer being a win or fail. I'm leaning towards win, but then I just can't condone that facial hair at all.

 

Out of the 8 trailers here currently, Prometheus and Hunger Games are the one's I am most interested in, not just because of the trailers, but because of the pedigree of the material.

The Drew Barrymore Big Miracle movie? Won't be seeing that...I feel like I know the whole story from the trailer.

Man on a Ledge look interesting, might see it at a matinee.

Darkest Hour, that's a rental.

 

It offends me as a human being.

 

From a cluster of 8 contemporary trailers, we go back to the James Bond trailers.

Starring Roger Moore and Christopher Lee.
The Man with the Golden Gun(1974)

 

Another one with Roger Moore. With Richard Kiel as Jaws.
The Spy Who Loved Me(1977)

Another one with Roger Moore. With Richard Kiel, yet again, as Jaws.
Moonraker(1979)

More with Roger Moore, as we enter the 1980s.
For Your Eyes Only(1981)

Wins or fails, from the Man with the Golden Gun to For Yours Eyes Only?

 

The first two are terribly square--what surprises me is all the plot points they show. Way too long.

The third is also too long, but that ski trip is excellent.

 

Wait, why are we calling This Means War Spy vs. Spy?

 

The Man with the Golden Gun

Pretty awful trailer. Just like the movie, it doesn't have enough Christopher Lee in it. I particularly liked the bit where they said, "the pace is killing" and then cut to some of the slowest martial arts action I've ever seen. But the problem here can be summed up in one question: what do you do with a movie that thinks it's a good selling point to advertise the presence of J.W. Pepper?

The Spy Who Loved Me

I'm surprised at how little they use Kiel in the trailer. But the trailer thankfully also doesn't feature much in the way of voice-over narration, which is definitely a good thing. It's serviceable without really being anything to write home about.

Moonraker

Man, those trailers are so long. This one's better than the movie. They make a bigger deal of Jaws, which is good, but then there's the bad. For one, it's obvious even from the trailer that Lois Chiles is going to be absolutely unbearable and also that Michel Lonsdale is basically not going to give a crap about anything. The way he loses his balance and leans against the wall is a dead giveaway that this is the most relaxed Bond villain ever. But the trailer isn't too bad, I guess.

For Your Eyes Only

Best trailer, which makes sense, since the movie itself is pretty good. The luge sequence stuff is gold and this trailer is actually making me want to watch this one again, which makes it a win, I think.

 

Because when I looked at the you tube page for that trailer, it said, "Spy vs. Spy" before it said "This Means War."

My bad.

See:

Spy vs. Spy - This Means War

 

Ah. Quite odd that they would do that.

I remember watching all the Bond trailers years ago, since they played at the end of the special edition VHS's. Never again. Like Pixar, not a great history with trailers.

 

I'm stunned at how long some of the Bond trailers are...I suppose what they were trying to do is say, "look Bond fans, we know what you like, and it's all here."

After looking through the trailers, not only do I think Roger Moore was wrong for Bond at the time, I am not sure Roger Moore would even have a career if he was beginning today.

He's just not gritty or physical enough for that character. Can you imagine him doing the parkour scene or the airport chase/battle in Casino Royale? No way.

 

Hell, can you imagine him doing the FRWL train fight?

 

By the same token, Daniel Craig could never have pulled off a broader film like The Spy Who Loved Me and made it as much fun as it is.

Moore is eminently watchable when he's riffing on the most popular things about Maibaum's Bond, rather than Fleming's. The mistake was when they tried to make him Connery for his first two films, and that just didn't work.

That being said, Moore can be very badass. Look no further than For Your Eyes Only, which features one of the best performances as Bond by anyone. And he was getting long in the tooth then, to boot.

 

One thing I had in mind when I made my comments was Roger Moore's inability to run. For a guy playing an action character, that seems a liability. I'm basing this on an interview I read with Moore one time where he mentioned that he told the Bond directors he worked with that he preferred to do as little running as possible because he just looks awkward when he runs. One of the directors actually questioned this and said "show me" and Moore showed him and the guy said, "yikes! you're right." So they either tried to minimize scenes of Moore running or had him running in the distance with his stunt double doing the honors.

Contrast that to Daniel Craig's physicality and athleticism in Casino Royale.

I'm not saying Moore's not a good actor, but for me personally, he was not that great as Bond, though I certainly acknowledge he delivered a lot of those one liners with panache.

 

I have a (heh) quantum of admiration for Roger Moore. Considering that the Bond series had already devolved into unfathomable stupidity--On Her Majesty's Secret Service notwithstanding--his was the perfect casting. No one else could have managed to keep those live-action cartoons afloat; he's the Adam West of James Bonds, deftly walking that gonzo tightrope.

Thank you, Sir Roger, for keeping the machine running through the Dark Times. Because of your valiant efforts, I'll finally get to see a Bond film where Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem beat the hell out of each other (hopefully in a train).