Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are
to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal.)
Spark - A Space Tail:
OK, could someone who knows American accents and speech patterns tell
me what it is the narrator is using here? Because that's exactly the
vocal style that hacks me off and causes me not to enjoy American
animation even when it's otherwise well-made. Otherwise, eh, generic
kidvid.
Alien - Covenant: and
weirdly this one seems less interesting than the last, because it's
mostly generic aliens-eating-people action rather than how the humans
react to it.
The Sense of an Ending:
interesting filming style, and Broadbent is usually solid, but it's
based on a Booker winner and being advertised as such, which means it
will inevitably be a deliberately slightly confused plot so that the
audience can feel clever for working out what's going on.
The Dinner: horrible
people at a horrible place doing their pathetic best to destroy each
other's lives. Where's the subtlety?
War Machine (Teaser):
can't get much about it from this, except "modern war film that wants
you to know it has a sense of humour".
Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Men Tell No Tales:
and, unlike the teasers I've seen before, this is a trailer that
actually makes the film look interesting. It has a plot! Who'd have
guessed?
Sand Castle: war is not
healthy for soldiers, or other living things. Anything beyond that?
Hard to tell.
The Assignment: so why
do I care about this hitman protagonist? That's the fundamental
question here, and it's one the trailer completely fails to answer.
No Culpes al Karma:
Verónica Echegui is appealing, but the film looks as if it's trying
to be hackneyed and derivative. Maybe this sort of story is more
unusual in Spain than it is here.
Geostorm: good
old-fashioned global disaster crap. This will work exactly to the
extent that they don't try to make us care about the characters;
sadly, Devlin has a record of overdoing the character stuff. Possibly
this is his much-delayed reaction to former working partner Emmerich's
The Day After Tomorrow?
Naked: tediously
generic embarrassment humour. So what?
Rough Night: women get
drunk and behave badly, and accidentally kill someone. Ha ha ha ha ha.
The Commune: a
promising start, but unconventional living turns out to be a bad idea
and you shouldn't have risked it, conventional suburban audience.
Buster's Mal Heart:
Rami Malek (mostly seen in Mr Robot) fails to stretch himself, or so
it would seem from this. The surreality might be good; hard to tell.
Seoul Station: shame
it's a prequel to a story which really didn't need one, but the
animation is medium decent and this might well be worth watching.
Win It All: really
really really stupid person is, well, I just said what he is. He made
his own troubles knowing exactly what he was doing, so why should I
care whether or how he gets out of them?
SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra Of Rock:
could be interesting, if he can stay interesting, but can he keep it
up for the full duration or is this the best bits?
Bright (Teaser): Will
Smith doesn't have the best record with science fiction.
The Most Hated Woman in America:
perhaps more timely now than when it happened: police are just more
thugs unless they also protect people they don't happen to like.
Atomic Blonde: in anime
they call this shit "fanservice". (And all those stairs and it takes
so long for someone to get thrown down them!) But is this just a
remake of Haywire with a higher-paid star and more skin on show, or
does it have something different to say?
Salt and Fire: Looks
great (of course it does with Herzog in charge) but will it remember
to be a good film as well as just a series of stunning images?
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