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.

Man of Steel (teaser)

Forgive me. This trailer is a few months old. But I wanted to review it anyway. To begin, I think I’ll coin a new verb.

Dark Knightify \dark,-nite,’ify\

transitive verb.

1. To make resemble Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight
2. To create a grittier, darker version of a preexisting franchise

Used in a sentence: Director Zack Snyder is Dark Knightifying Superman with his film The Man of Steel.

Pretty nifty, this trailer. This makes me want to see it. Not only does The Man of Steel look like it’s taking some cues from Dark Knight, it also looks like it took cues from Tree of Life. Note how the trailer makes use of such dark nostalgia: water hitting the rocks, clothes dancing on the clothes’ line, boy wearing a cape running, butterfly on the swing. The first minute of this trailer leads you to think this will be a grizzly drama about America. Maybe it will be.

The reason I’m optimistic about Man of Steel is that the project is in the hands of Zack Snyder, who has the reputation of being a comic book loyalist e.g. he doesn’t stray far from the source material with his films. Think Watchmen or 300, both Snyder films that were intensely true to their original books. Only thing is, with Superman, there’s so much damn source material it’s hard to guess which way he’ll go. But I trust Christopher Nolan had a hand in making that decision. So I have faith.

I give Man of Steel four stars. It looks like a drastic reenvisioning of Superman, but like it’ll also stay true to the core values of Superman — which the dismal Superman Returns did not. Here’s crossing my fingers, hoping this film will again prove the timeless fact: Superman is certainly the best superhero ever created.

Also look at this poster. Superman’s in handcuffs. Say what?!!

Also here’s a classic Max Fleischer Superman cartoon from the ‘40s. Enjoy!

Now You See Me

Now You See Me looks like The Illusionist and Inception balled up into one film. Except this story will have something Inception fundamentally lacks: Morgan Freeman to explain everything. Or at the very least, Morgan Freeman to say confounding things like, “The more you think you see, the easier it will be to fool you.”

So if there is one fundamental assumption we can make about Now You See Me it’s that it’s going to be rife with twists and unexpected turns. Because that’s just what every thriller about magicians has to do. In fact, Morgan Freeman’s cryptic narration leads me to believe this’ll be what the How I Met Your Mother guys refer to as a Deep Fried story, which essentially means the story will have a structure similar to that of a Russian doll. Like, for instance: the magicians wanted to get caught so they could pull off this even bigger heist, which they were actually only doing because Jesse Eisenberg’s niece was being held hostage by a terrorist cell who was manipulating them into doing these things. But then it actually turns out it was all just Morgan Freeman’s dream.

I give Now You See Me three and a half stars. A little part of me went giddy when I saw this trailer and the talent that’s in this film. I mean, Michael Caine? Come on. He’s also in both The Illusionist and Inception i.e. Michael Caine makes movies like this great. And Morgan Freeman doesn’t hurt either.

One worry: Now You See Me will seen as a Chris Nolan ripoff.

Also: This

Iron Man 3

Looks like the producers of Iron Man 3 broke into Christopher Nolan’s house and stole a script of The Dark Knight Rises from his boudoir and after reading it they were like, “Crap. We need to make Iron Man 3 dark, you guys.”

Thus, we’re getting a darker installment to the Iron Man series this time round. But darkness isn’t bad, per se. The real risk of any superhero sequel is that it bites off more than it can chew. Let’s face it. Even Dark Knight Rises came within inches of choking on the massive bite it took. So my prediction is that Iron Man 3 will choke on its bite. After all, this movie’s going to incorporate The Mandarin, Iron Patriot, a million Iron Man suits, Don Cheadle, and angst. That’s a lot.

Unfortunately, this film gets two and a half stars. But never fear. Iron Man 3 won’t kill Iron Man. The Avengers 2 will show up just in time and perform the Heimlich. 

(Alas, if only Avengers 2 had been at the same restaurant when Spiderman 3 choked to death.)