Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!

Attack of the Sci-Fi Trailers

The last week has seen a deluge of trailers for some of next year’s big bucks blockbusters, predominately science fiction-related and three of which representing something of a risk as they’re original material. So how do they stack up against each other?

Oblivion

UK Release Date: 12 April 2013

US Release Date: 19 April 2013

Tom Cruise looks to further cement his career comeback (albeit based on one big hit) by attaching himself to this Joseph Koskinski film. Kosinski’s debut was TRON: Legacy, which earned both brickbats and plaudits but most agreed that it featured some stunning visuals. Oblivion will likely continue that at very least but, as with TRON, the script for this may be of questionable merit. Kosinski came up with the idea, an eight-page treatment that was turned into an illustrated novella (the release delayed until the film comes out), but there’s little sense of a meaty premise to this trailer.

Tom’s (as others have noted, Wall-E-like) a maintenance worker on a deserted future Earth who comes across Morgan Freeman. And Olga Kurylenko tells him he’s not who he thinks he is. And there are some monsters/mutants. And Tom may be in the future but don't worry he’s relatable because he likes the Superbowl and shoots hoops. And there are lots of BWAAAAA BWAAAAA sounds, so you know this is big and dramatic like every post-Inception trailer. Sometimes Morgan Freeman can be a real lift to a story, sometimes he makes Chain Reaction; I’m not getting a hugely positive vibe from him here. Nice eye goggles, though. And very nice design work generally. Tom’s getting ordered to stand down. Twice. Andrea Riseborough features quite a bit, which is a good sign, but no glimpse of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau or Melisa Leo (unless I missed them).

This looks like it wants to be intelligent sci-fi, which is to be celebrated. But in this trailer it hasn’t translated into a must-see factor. “Earth is a memory worth fighting for” is a wishy-washy tagline. Hopefully the next spot will have more of a grip on the story, or make the mystery more compelling.

Business: By the time this is out, Jack Reacher will or won’t have become a big hit. Oblivion has about five months to work out its marketing (provide it isn’t a stinker, in which case nothing will save it), but right now I’d be surprised if it does much more than $120m US/$300m worldwide.

***/5

After Earth

UK/US Release Date: 7 June 2013

Oh look, another deserted Earth movie (this time quarantined), from Cruise’s buddy Will Smith. But is it really a Will Smith movie, or is it a Jaden Smith vehicle, the young nepote claiming a summer blockbuster by stealth under daddy’s star power? It’s been suggested that Will won’t see out the film, so that may well be the case. Along for the ride is M Night Shyamalan, who didn’t originate the screenplay but has a co-writer’s credit (Stephen Gaghan’s presence at least suggests it may have a bit of nuance). With this and The Last Airbender, the director has eased off on self-originated projects; probably because they have received increasingly mixed receptions.

So all the animals on the planet have evolved to kill humans (this seems peculiar, if there are no humans present). More importantly, we learn that fear is not real; it is a product of thoughts we create. Fear is a choice. Very rousing, Will. Are these those deadly engrams we must seek to eliminate? Whether or not Smith is espousing a doctrine, it has that whiff.

As trailers go, it’s better put together than Oblivion. Yet I have no interest in seeing a Jaden Smith movie, and I didn’t bother checking out Shyamalan’s last picture. What it does with the significance of the revelation that this is Earth is more questionable; it appears to be all about Jaden’s quest for survival (the imdb synopsis tells us he is trying to recover a rescue beacon, and that Will’s playing General Cypher Raige; I kid you not).

Business: Will this do well for Will? I can’t see it making much more than $100m US/$300m worldwide, unless there’s some added ingredient that makes it a discussion piece (the Shyamalan factor, basically)

***/5

Pacific Rim

UK/US Release Date: 12 July 2013

More BWAAAA BWAAAA. Big robots. Big monsters. Duking it out. It’s like Transformers meets Cloverfield. Or something. Fanboys have been getting all over-excited by this because it's Guillermo Del Toro directing. And I can understand that; he has a rock solid track record (even Mimic is okay), he’s an unashamed geek and presumably this premise is tickling an itch for many. And it features Idris Elba (although that didn’t stop Prometheus getting a drubbing).

But I’m not sold on this, or excited. Enlisting actors rather than stars (Charlie Hunman, Elba) can add credibility to your project (see Ridley Scott’s 2012 film) it won’t save it if you can’t tell people why they need to see the film. Alien life came from a beneath the sea, a portal between dimensions? Lovecraft lives on. The premise is so cheesy that the self-importance of the trailer makes the whole thing look no fun at all. The robot designs aren’t all that, and the control suits’ virtual movement doesn’t come across very well. Worst of all is the dialogue, which is all-round terrible (“Let’s go fishing”, “Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!”)

This could be one of those movies that the internet goes wild for but the general public can’t see the attraction (Scott Pilgrim vs The World).

Business: I’m iffy at the moment, I can’t see this getting Transformers numbers, or being the hit Del Toro really needs to get In the Mountains of Madness off the ground. It may do decent business in the rest of the world, but at the moment I reckon $70m US/$250m worldwide.

**/5

Star Trek into Darkness

UK/US Release Date: 17 May 2013

Who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing is all everyone (everyone who gives a shit, anyway) can talk about. That, and how J J Abrams should quit already with being such a perpetual tease. Except Sherlock is playing John Harrison, a footnote in Trek lore. Is he actually someone else? An agent for Khan?

More voice overs, ominous BWAAAAs and proclamations (“I have returned – to have my vengeance”) and exciting glimpses of things you want to see more of; the Enterprise underwater, an alien planet with flora of a peculiar reddish hue, a provocative shot that echoes Kirk/Spock in Wrath of Khan (hands meeting against a glass wall). And de rigueur mass destruction.

Nothing terribly original, but effectively brief nevertheless.

Business: It will likely build on the success of the 2009 film, that only made $128m in the rest of the world (peanuts compared to the expectation for most films to now do the majority of their business outside the US). It will probably end up with something not too far off the original’s $250m US tally, but what’s the ceiling on the series abroad? $250m US/$450m worldwide.

***1/2/5

Man of Steel

UK/US Release Date: 14 June 2013

I really liked the first Malick-esque teaser; this comes across as a little more generic, and all together more portentous than the Reeves era (but with Christopher Nolan producing, it’s little surprise that Clark has been dirtied up – why, he’s even sporting an unruly mass of whiskers!), particularly with the heavenly choir accompaniment. And glimpses of Zod and Lois (not sure about Crowe’s armour as Jor-El, but Costner seems like perfect casting). There’s not much plot here, but it neatly re-positions the question of how Supes would work in today’s era but I assuming that he would be rejected.

Business: For such a definably homegrown superhero, the films have historically done about 50/50 US and rest of the world. So far this is being sold with finesse and care, and expectation (and the desire) for a rebirth for the hero to take away the bad taste of Superman Returns is high. $300m US/$600m worldwide.

****/5

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

I can’t be the worst. What about that hotdog one?

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (SPOILERS) It would have been a merciful release, had the title card “ The End ”, flashing on screen a little before the ninety-minute mark, not been a false dawn. True, I would still have been unable to swab the bloody dildoes fight from my mind, but at least Everything Everywhere All at Once would have been short. Indeed, by the actual end I was put in mind of a line spoken by co-star James Wong in one of his most indelible roles: “ Now this really pisses me off to no end ”. Or to put it another way, Everything Everywhere All at Once rubbed me up the wrong which way quite a lot of most of the time.

We’ve got the best ball and chain in the world. Your ass.

Wedlock (1991) (SPOILERS) The futuristic prison movie seemed possessed of a particular cachet around this time, quite possibly sparked by the grisly possibilities of hi-tech disincentives to escape. On that front, HBO TV movie Wedlock more than delivers its FX money shot. Elsewhere, it’s less sure of itself, rather fumbling when it exchanges prison tropes for fugitives-on-the-run ones.

Drank the red. Good for you.

Morbius (2022) (SPOILERS) Generic isn’t necessarily a slur. Not if, by implication, it’s suggestive of the kind of movie made twenty years ago, when the alternative is the kind of super-woke content Disney currently prioritises. Unfortunately, after a reasonable first hour, Morbius descends so resignedly into such unmoderated formula that you’re left with a too-clear image of Sony’s Spider-Verse when it lacks a larger-than-life performer (Tom Hardy, for example) at the centre of any given vehicle.

He’ll regret it to his dying day, if ever he lives that long.

The Quiet Man (1952) (SPOILERS) The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well less Anglophile and Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity.

So, you’re telling me that NASA is going to kill the President of the United States with an earthquake?

Conspiracy Theory (1997) (SPOILERS) Mel Gibson’s official rehabilitation occurred with the announcement of 2016’s Oscar nominations, when Hacksaw Ridge garnered six nods, including Mel as director. Obviously, many refuse to be persuaded that there’s any legitimate atonement for the things someone says. They probably weren’t even convinced by Mel’s appearance in Daddy’s Home 2 , an act of abject obeisance if ever there was one. In other circles, though, Gibbo, or Mad Mel, is venerated as a saviour unsullied by the depraved Hollywood machine, one of the brave few who would not allow them to take his freedom. Or at least, his values. Of course, that’s frequently based on alleged comments he made, ones it’s highly likely he didn’t. But doesn’t that rather appeal to the premise of his 23-year-old star vehicle Conspiracy Theory , in which “ A good conspiracy theory is an unproveable one ”?

He doesn’t want to lead you. He just wants you to follow.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) (SPOILERS) The general failing of the prequel concept is a fairly self-evident one; it’s spurred by the desire to cash in, rather than to tell a story. This is why so few prequels, in any form, are worth the viewer/reader/listener’s time, in and of themselves. At best, they tend to be something of a well-rehearsed fait accompli. In the movie medium, even when there is material that withstands closer inspection (the Star Wars prequels; The Hobbit , if you like), the execution ends up botched. With Fantastic Beasts , there was never a whiff of such lofty purpose, and each subsequent sequel to the first prequel has succeeded only in drawing attention to its prosaic function: keeping franchise flag flying, even at half-mast. Hence Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore , belatedly arriving after twice the envisaged gap between instalments and course-correcting none of the problems present in The Crimes of Grindelwald .

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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