Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return trailer review

[ONE STAR]

Once again, Hollywood is forcing us to revisit a fantasy world we should have just let be. Can’t we all agree that as soon as the Wicked Witch dies and The Wizard is outed as a phony, there’s really no compelling reason to return to Oz? I mean, for goodness sakes, we’re talking about the fever dream of a teenager girl—and a lazy fever dream at that! You want a brain? Yea, you actually had one all along. I’m just gonna say it. Oz sequels and prequels are pretty much all bullshit and I don’t see why Hollywood keeps making us go back there.

Ok. Deep breath.

Now that that’s off my chest: Nothing about Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return looks good. It looks like a stupid rehash of the original story done up in slick-but-soulless computer animation. Here’s the story. Dorothy comes back to Oz to stop an evil Jester. Along the way she meets three eccentric friends (this time, a big owl, a marshmallow person and a porcelain doll). Additionally the scarecrow, tin man and lion are still around doing stuff, presumably to help Oz.

Ugh. I don’t know. I can’t really even come up with a compelling description of this movie because very little about it looks compelling.

Is it sad that the only thing that marginally interests me about this film is that Patrick Stewart is doing the voice of a tree stump? His voice is not even in the trailer and yet he’s still the best part of this movie.

I give Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return one star, and I also give a plea to story makers everywhere—let’s make some new fantasy worlds. I’m getting tired of Oz, Middle Earth, Hogwarts and combinations of those worlds therein. Let’s start branching out again.

Godzilla trailer review [trailer 2]

[THREE STARS]

Ok, maybe it’s because the voice of panicked Brian Cranston brings me back to the recent heyday of Breaking Bad, but this new trailer Godzilla really did it for me. Sure, the paranoid voiceover was riddled with clichés, “God help us all,” but it was delivered by Brian Cranston—in a Godzilla movie!

This new trailer gives us more substance than the previous teaser and gives me a little more hope. For one thing, there’s a nice nod to Godzilla’s cinematic origin in the 1950s. Also, Godzilla is fucking huge, which (I can’t believe I’m saying this) is actually a big draw—a superficial draw yes, but a big one nonetheless. If you’re gonna do a giant monster movie, you have to out-giant all the other ones that came before. Hopefully that means one day there will be a movie about a monster the size of an ocean. That would be awesome. We’d all be dead so fast.

The soundtrack here is helpful too. Gyorgy Ligeti’s haunting contemporary classical music, most notably used in 2001: A Space Odyssey, has the unsettling effect of making you feel adrift in the presence of evil Gods. A good choice for this film.

And finally, there’s a moral to Godzilla, spoken by another character in voiceover: “The arrogance of man is thinking nature is within our control and not the other way around.” A good moral, such arrogant beasts we, man. If only we didn’t need Godzilla (or Jurassic Park or The Grey or anything by Werner Herzog) to teach us this lesson again and again. Alas…

Godzilla gets three stars. An improvement from my previous review. Well done, Godzilla. We await your total and unstoppable destruction.

Guardians of the Galaxy trailer review

[THREE STARS]

Shock and awe is how you should feel about The Guardians of The Galaxy trailer. Not because it looks amazing, but simply because it looks like not garbage.

This is the third film in Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a phase that hopes to greatly expand upon the amount of Marvel characters you are aware of. Hence this film, Guardians of the Galaxy, which up until recently was a comic title nobody knew or gave much of a fuck about. Now though—now the fucks are coming in.

The film’s got an impressive lineup. Chris Pratt, the who’d-of-thunk-it breakout star from Parks and Recreation, plays Star Lord, a Han Solo type with a doofus streak. Then there’s Bradley Cooper doing the voice of Rocket Racoon and Vin Diesel doing the voice of Groot. Also John C. O’Reilly as some guy and Benecio Del Toro reprising his role as The Collector from Thor 2. That’s a lot of talent behind a super hero movie whose source comic book has been cancelled multiple times over the course of multiple decades. But the good people at Disney must have had faith and now it looks like it’ll pay off.

So yea, the takeaway here is that Guardians of the Galaxy actually looks fun, like they’re channeling the spirit of Iron Man 1. And that’s a good thing. Of late, the tendency for super hero movies has been ‘go darker.’ Maybe these new characters, these so-called guardians of the galaxy, with their pep and charisma, will be a refreshing dive into the almost-satured super hero genre.

I’m giving Guardians of the Galaxy three stars. It also doesn’t hurt that there’s a talking raccoon and a talking tree in this film.

Interstellar trailer review

[FOUR STARS]

Christopher Nolan, now free from the bat-grip of Batman, has basically earned the right to make any movie he wants. If his name is on it, it will be green-lighted. That is new Hollywood law. So Interstellar, Nolan’s first directorial effort since the overwrought but fitting ending to his Dark Knight series, will obviously hold a lot of interest to the movie-going public.

Nolan’s last non-Batman film was the mind-bendingly fabulous Inception, and while that film was a deep exploration of inner-space, Interstellar looks to be a deep exploration of outer space. Hopefully it’ll also be mind-bendingly fabulous.

Since this trailer is a teaser, there’s not much substance to review. But we do get a hefty voiceover by star-of-the-film Mathew McConaughey. Over a whole lot of archival footage of mankind’s achievements, McConaughey says things like, “We’ve always defined ourselves by our ability to overcome the impossible” and “Perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we’re still pioneers.” A little grandiose, but hey, it’s a movie about exploring space, which is inherently grandiose.

The only footage we see from the actual film are a bunch of shots of cornfields, a teary-eyed Mathew McConaughey driving off in his truck, and a rocket being launched into space from a cornfield. IMDB describes Interstellar as “A group of explorers make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitation on human space travel and conquer the vast distance involved in an interstellar voyage,” leading me to conclude this is a film about amateur astronauts from the countryside making an incredible discovery. And frankly, that sounds very awesome. Especially in the hands of Christopher Nolan.

That’s why I give Interstellar Four Stars. Nolan has earned our faith over the years, especially with his non-Batman films. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one day he will be regarded in the same way we view Alfred Hitchcock today. Film by film, Nolan is making the modern classics.

Godzilla trailer review

[TWO STARS]

Beginning a trailer with skydiving is so engaging. First the Amazing Spiderman 2 trailer did it, and now the first Godzilla trailer does it. Something about a perilous fall sucks you right in. And boy, this fall is really perilous. These military guys are jumping through some apocalyptic clouds and then toward a devastated cityscape and then right into the face of the mighty Godzilla. That’d be enough to turn anyone off skydiving.

Godzilla must be one of the most revamped characters in cinema history. Mostly those revamps have been Japanese, but Hollywood did try its hand at Godzilla way back in 1998 (All we really got out of that one though was a thorough understanding that Mathew Broderick is not an action star). So this is the second American attempt at Godzilla and with it, we have what appears to be the franchise’s Dark Knightification (i.e. a previously existing genre rebooted to be darker and grittier, and therefore more believable, because apparently, this day and age we all believe reality is dark and gritty).

So what can we expect from this film? It’s hard to say. The trailer is a little short on substance. It looks like they’ve captured the basics—giant dinosaur-like creature attacks city. But beyond that it’s hard to know what the story is, or rather if there is more of a story. All we can say for certain about the film is that there will be a lot of explosions and Bryan Cranston is in it.

That’s why, in spite of a strong opening skydive, I’m giving Godzilla two stars.

I’m a little short on faith when it comes to big monster movies. You need to have a whole lot of character development to make a story like this be more than a masturbatory exercise in special effects. A monster simply destroying things does not a good movie make. It has to destroy characters that matter to us.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 trailer review

[TWO STARS]

The opening shot of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 trailer is, well, amazing. Spiderman is in free fall, plummeting into New York City (Why, you ask? Because who cares!), then at the last minute he propels his trusty webs and swings into Spiderman-ish glory through some Manhattan skyscrapers. My god, you can practically taste the undiluted liberation of being Spider-Man.

But after that opener, the trailer proceeds to make the film look more and more like a clusterfuck. Pardon my French. It has long been known that in the realm of superhero movies the maximum amount of villains you should have in any film is two. Push it to three and all hell breaks loose (Case in point, Batman & Robin, Spiderman 3) A two-hour film simply can’t effectively relay a backstory, action, and resolution for so many bad guys—something always gets compromised. And usually it’s something important like the story or character development.

So concerning Amazing Spider-Man 2, I was admittedly apprehensive about the two villains, Rhino and Electro, to begin with (especially given Jamie Foxx’s ridiculous-looking blue Electro). I was willing to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt though. But now that we know Green Goblin is a major player in the movie, things have gotten hairier. Suddenly Rhino and Electro don’t look so central to the plot, mainly because any movie with Green Goblin in it has to be about Spider-man vs. Green Goblin. They’re archenemies for Jesus’ sake!

The only way I could see all these villains actually working is if the film takes on an episodic structure: if it opens in medias res with Spider-Man pursuing/fighting Rhino and quickly putting the villain away. Then Electro comes along, probably unleashed by Harry Osborne. His plot is the centerpiece of the movie. But after Electro is squashed, Harry Osborne becomes Green Goblin, kills Gwen Stacey, and Spider-man is sad. Bada-bing, bada-boom, the end.

That’s probably not how it’s going to go though. There’re going to be a lot of villain team ups. It’s inevitable. *Sigh* That’s why I give The Amazing Spider-Man 2 two stars. It’s going to be a mess.

Two alsos:

Also: In case you didn’t notice, Doctor Octopus’ robot arms and vulture’s robot wings can quickly be seen in this trailer. Are they easter eggs? Or alluding to a future Sinister Six Spider-Man film?

Also: Is anyone sad that Rhino is a big robot and not a humongous guy in a rhino suit? I’m sad.

X-Men Days of Future Past trailer review

[THREE AND 1/2 STARS]

After The Avengers, X-Men Days of Future Past might be the most ambitious Marvel-Universe-centric film to ever be produced. I can’t think of another film series that’s tried something like this. Reconciling one X-Men franchise with a prequel X-Men franchise through the all-wonderful plot device of time travel? We’re listening.

The plot is the most X-Meny plot that will ever be put on the silver screen. Taking place in the not-so-distant future, some kind of catastrophic war has occurred and Dr. Xavier decides to send Wolverine into the past to convince young Dr. Xavier to hope again. Why does he need to hope again? What made him lose faith? And why does his loss of hope somehow result in an apocalyptic future? Guess we’ll have to watch to find out. But also, while we’re asking questions, why do the future X-Men appear to be living in a weird castle?

Ultimately, I think this movie looks pretty good. And it’s impressive they signed on so many actors from both franchises. But ultimately, this is a delicate story (the first time to my knowledge that time travel has been incorporated into a popular super hero film since the world-spinningly stupid ending of Superman). A lot of this film’s success will hinge on how convincingly they pull off the time travel and demonstrate the need for it. Based on where we left off in X-Men: The Last Stand is it plausible to assume a catastrophic war was in the near future? I don’t know. Thankfully Bryan Singer, director of X-Men and X2 is at the helm as director.

So I choose to have faith in this film and respect for its ambition. I give X-Men Days of Future Past three and a half stars.

One last thing though: they better have one hell of an explanation for how Dr. X is back. If you recall (spoiler ahead) his body is fucking incinerated in X-Men: The Last Stand.

Captain America: Winter Soldier trailer review

[THREE AND 1/2 STARS]

Cap is back. And in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he seems far less disturbed by the events of The Avengers than Tony Stark does in Iron Man 3. Indeed, he looks ready to bash some heads in. I guess that’s only to be expected from a guy who was frozen and hibernating since WWII. Probably not a lot fazes you.

Well, at first glance this sequel looks pretty good. It’s taking itself more seriously than the last film did, giving Cap some added gusto and some moral high ground—both of which are essential for a good Captain America story. This film also has Robert Redford in a role I can only assume turns out to be a bad guy, Sam Jackson returning as Nick Fury, and a lot of S.H.I.E.L.D. In this trailer we also get to glimpse a superhero that hasn’t yet appeared in any Marvel films: Cap’s flying ally, Falcon

And to all intensive purposes, it looks like they’re staying true to the Winter Soldier story arc from the comics. For those who couldn’t decipher it from the calamity, (one of) the main villains in this film is going to be that mysterious long-haired assassin with the metal arm. Who is he? Well, you’ll just have to see the movie and find out.

Captain America: Winter Soldier gets three stars and a half. This film feels well grounded, like it knows where it’s going, and it’s going to get us there with furious fun.

Hercules: The Legend Begins trailer review

[ONE AND 1/2 STARS]

Did anyone else get bored watching this trailer? I got bored. Hercules: The Legend Begins is a collection of bad clichés with the names of mythological figures slapped on them. This film looks like what you’d get if you combined Gladiator with 300 with Samson and Delilah with Romeo and Juliet with a bunch more stupid.

I remember when Disney’s animated feature Hercules came out, there was a lot of groaning from academia. “This film doesn’t follow the legend of Hercules accurately,” “Disney just made up a bunch of stuff about Hercules” etc.  Well, I think by comparison, Hercules: The Legend Begins makes Disney’s Hercules look like mythological canon.

For instance, Hercules having Zeus-fueled lightning powers? That—that is pure poppycock. Hercules is just really strong. He’s not a Jedi. And where are all the Gods? And also, back to my boredom. This trailer is so monotone. It hits one note of “This is serious shit” and then practically gives away the entire movie. My guess is that when Hercules uses his Jedi powers, that’s the climax of the film, when he and his gladiatorial comrades are storming the city for the sole purpose of ensuring Hercules can be with his girlfriend. Who would even go into battle for that? Honestly.

I give Hercules: The Legend Begins one and a half stars. Later in 2014 Dwayne Johnson will be playing Hercules in Hercules: The Thracian Wars, hopefully that film will be everything this film is not.

The Grand Budapest Hotel trailer review

[FOUR STARS]

There’s one word for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel: zany. I shall capitalize that and say it again: Zany. This trailer is jam packed with so much Andersonian goodness it makes me giddy in the knees. It had me from the moment Ralph Fiennes says to the police, “She’s been murdered and you think I did it,” and bolts away.

Where to even begin? Ok, let’s begin with Ralph Fiennes. He’s such an accomplished actor, having appeared in notable dramas like Schindler’s List, The English Patient and The Reader. But over the past several years, to the viewing public, he’s primarily been Voldemort. Now playing famed and slightly flamboyant hotel concierge M. Gustave, Fiennes has the chance to spread a new pair of wings—comedic wings. In Grand Budapest Hotel he is confident, suave, and most importantly, very funny.

The rest of the cast is populated with Wes Anderson veterans. The list includes: Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Edward Norton, Adrian Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Willem DaFoe and more. And Tony Revolori, a Hollywood newcomer, plays Zero, a lobby boy at the Grand Budapest and M. Gustave’s protégé. It appears the relationship between M. Gustave and Zero will be the crux of the film’s action.

As to its look and feel, the Grand Budapest Hotel looks distinctively like a Wes Anderson film, which is to say beautiful and slightly surreal. Also, the choice of purples and pinks as the central color palette is very bold. Those aren’t colors people like to stare at for long periods of time, but somehow I think Wes will pull it off.

After the success of his last film, the nostalgic Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson is surely going to get a lot of attention for this movie. If it’s any good, which, based on this trailer, I suspect it will be, The Grand Budapest Hotel is going to create a whole new world of Wes Anderson devotees.

So all this in mind, I give The Grand Budapest Hotel four stars. It looks distinctive, it has an amazing cast, an amazing director and I can’t wait for 2014 now.