Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are
to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal.)
Pilgrimage:
road trip, early mediæval Irish style. Lovely setting, good cast,
samey action; it'll be the talky bits that have the potential to
distinguish this one, and the trailer doesn't show them.
Wonder:
this kidvid has nothing to say to me.
Wind River:
shame we have to open with same old woman in peril, but this might
just work: good scriptwriters, plausible cast, maybe just another
hunting down of a killer but maybe something more.
School Life:
flick flick flick; these segments are too short to give us any idea of
what the film is going to be, beyond the very basics ("children learn
something real, and so do the teachers").
Logan Lucky:
some mildly amusing bits here, but so much of it is "unlovable losers
fail even to commit crime effectively" that it has little appeal for me.
Paddington 2:
probably OK for people who like the first one, but these are some of
the oldest comedy moves in the book.
Victoria and Abdul:
a lot of "poor little rich girl" here, though it looks as though it
might be fun at times. Rests entirely on Judi Dench, of course, but
that's no bad thing.
Feed:
spends a lot of time trying to look like Generic College before
shifting into Generic Horror and then finally getting towards some
subtle psychology. Might be worth a look.
The Mountain Between Us:
the setup is kind of forced (why wasn't there a flight plan, or a
transponder, or an emergency beacon?), but the story might work, and
the cast is solid. Where did the Faithful Dog come from?
Darkland:
Death, cops don't care, vigilante revenge, man being a man; doesn't
look any more innovative for being filmed in Foreign.
Fog In August:
doomed children rebel. A real cheery experience, no doubt. (OK,
sometimes I like watching serious downers, but this doesn't grab me.)
Goodbye Berlin:
do we need more than young pretty people going on a road trip? I fear
I do.
Halal Daddy:
do we need more than young pretty people trying to overcome a culture
clash with hormones? Has Colm Meaney ever played anything other than
that one character?
Murder on the Orient Express:
great cast does same old story. A safe bet, and I hope they had some
fun in the filming, but there's no spark here.
The Oath:
all that's here is superficial in the extreme. Is it just a generic
actioner as the trailer suggests, or is there something more
interesting to it, some subtlety or depth to the characters?
Son of Bigfoot:
are trailer narrators still allowed to say "the adventure… of a
lifetime"? This seems awfully by-the-numbers.
The Boy and the Beast:
and yet again, show me something more than the generic content. Sure,
it looks beautiful, but that's not going to be enough to carry it.
Pup Star 2:
either you already like this type of entertainment product, or this
isn't going to bring you in. It doesn't bring me in.
American Made:
smugglers just wanna have fun. The course of the film is entirely
predictable, and Tom Cruise doesn't help. (Yeah, I know, we're meant
to be nice to him these days, but I still find him too much The Tom
Cruise Persona and too little whatever character he's meant to be
playing.)
Blind:
shake up the pieces, turn the handle on the Plot-o-Matic and out comes
the script. If the performances can carry this, it might work.
Coco:
I've seen a trailer for this before. Can't find it in the archives,
though; perhaps they've renamed it. Looks good, because it's Pixar,
but the story and characters seem safely dull, because Pixar is owned
by Disney now.
First Kill:
innocent family gets mixed up with criminals. With Bruce Willis, and
some other actors with fewer wrinkles.
Black Panther (Teaser):
those sneaky Africans, hiding their ultratech civilisation and being
taken advantage of for thousands of years, because, er, because.
Tour De Pharmacy (Teaser):
finally after all these hagiographies of cyclists, a real… oh, just a
comedy. Meh.
Flatliners:
include the standard "why remake" rant, sure, but I really can't see
any point to this. The original was about getting right with your
past; this is apparently about getting l33t skills without putting in
the effort, and then generic horror effects.
Olaf's Frozen Adventure:
let's take the most tedious part of the generally-excellent Frozen,
and give it its own film. Woo.
Jungle:
it's nice to be able to take a year off from your life and travel
round the world. Is "horrible things happen to a character played by
Daniel Radcliffe" a genre now?
Daddy's Home 2:
men are incompetent at anything involving emotions, and that's funny.
Goodbye Christopher Robin:
aww, how cute. C. R. Milne never really recovered from what was done
to him, but I bet the film won't show that.
Happy Death Day:
Groundhog Day meets generic serial killer flick. Actually this might
work; at least it solves the expendable meat problem by making all the
victims the same character. Not that that will be enough on its own…
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