RogerBW's Blog

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I hate everything.)

Supercon: horrible people do horrible things to other horrible people. And this is funny.

The Rake: apparently this isn't a sequel. It just feels like one. Meh.

Taco Shop: horrible people do horrible things to other horrible people. And this is funny. (Plus gay panic.)

The Debt Collector: horrible people do horrible things to other horrible people. And this is funny. (Plus strippers.) Is it the season for it or something?

Peppermint: very straightforward murder and revenge, but goes to a lot of trouble to set up its protagonist so that she has no other options. Presumably because she's a woman; male murder-revenge protagonists don't need anything like that much motivation.

Yardie: yeah, as before, it seems to be trying a bit too hard to be an Oscar Film; but in spite of that it might work.

Ralph Breaks the Internet - Wreck-It Ralph 2: hang on, you're sure this isn't Ready Player One part two? Seems awfully packed with references that happen to be owned by the same IP monopolist, while still not actually giving any hint of what the plot might be.

Suspiria (Teaser): perhaps a bit too arty? Maybe that's the audience they're going for, but I like to have a slightly better idea of what's going on in a film than this.

White Boy Rick: no, this isn't another ageing director revisiting his idealised childhood; it's one of the next generation of directors revisiting the era just before he was born. Ho hum. Otherwise doesn't seem to have anything to say.

Widows: accidentally ends up looking like the "tough" version of Ocean's 8. But still a great cast, and it seems pretty solid.

Bumblebee: more unconvincing CGI robots.

Mortal Engines: I haven't read the books. I don't think Peter Jackson craps gold. So what's left? Lots of effects shots, desperately clichéd dialogue, repeat both.

Operation Finale: gleefully turns history into a generic commando-raid story. And this has the Ben Kingsley Taint on it.

The LEGO Movie 2 - The Second Part: does at least lampshade one of the huge problems of the first film, but, eh.

The Old Man and the Gun: politeness makes it all OK.

A Star Is Born: being rich and famous doesn't make you less of a creepy controlling stalker.

London Fields: oh dear, Martin Amis. Oh well. Perfect for the dying generation of Hollywood culture.

Spider-Man - Into the Spider-Verse: I like the narration balloons, but otherwise this doesn't really jump for me.

Bad Times at the El Royale: yeah, but apart from the vicious criminals, what's it for? Where's the sense of fun that something like Hotel Artemis manages to exude, but this is simply lacking?

How to Train Your Dragon - The Hidden World: probably appeals more to people who liked the first one.

Serenity: obvious noir setup is obvious, but Skeezy McConaughey is just a more convincing actor than Heroic McConaughey, so it might just work.

The Girl in the Spider's Web: still not really interested in this setting, and this is a sequel by another hand which distances it one step more – not to mention the third iteration of attempts to film them.

Halloween: the real horror is that franchises can never really die, no batter how deeply they're buried. Points for Jamie Lee Curtis, though.

Siberia: generic Russian stereotypes. Apparently this is a new film, not a rediscovered film from the 1990s.

First Man: well, they've got the LEM trainer incident, so that's good. But I wonder whether the artificial drama will detract from the real stuff.

The Little Stranger: a mannered version of what seems to be a very generic-looking spooky old house story. The acting doesn't impress.

Dumbo (Teaser): why not just re-release the original? That's how Disney makes most of its money, after all. And then they wouldn't have had to employ the notoriously unreliable Tim Burton.

The Nun (Teaser): more Wansploitation, though Wan wasn't involved in making this one. The people who eat this stuff up presumably won't care. Yeah, be sure to watch to the end or you won't get the full force of the cliché.

Alpha: mentioned here only because I saw a trailer for this back in July last year, so it's been sitting on a shelf since then. Shows real confidence, that does.

The Children Act: points on for Emma Thompson. Points off for trite story and especially the failing home life.

Little Women: well, the film's been made a lot of times before. Points on for stories about women. But if you're going to tell a modern story why lean on the name recognition of the original? It argues for a lack of actual story content.

Boundaries: "dad needs a place to stay" pretty much summarises this class of film. As well as "Fambly is more important than mere individual choices, which are always wrong".

Nobody's Fool: and again. Your horrible Fambly is far more important than your own life.

Puzzle: while the story is still an obvious one, this actually looks interesting. Excellent acting helps a lot.

Creed II: probably appeals more to people who aren't me.

Skate Kitchen: a bunch of skaters and Charisma Vortex Jaden Smith, presumably in case there was some danger of having an interesting story about women.

Welcome to Marwen: yeah, that's how I'd expect Zemeckis to treat this story. Whimsy applied with a garden sprayer.

Office Uprising: yes, yes, the office environment is a mess of barely-repressed violence… but what's the point, what does it have to say that wasn't in that clause?

Soorma: looks a lot like every other underdog sports film, until it turns into every other injury-and-recovery film. Of course, trailers always accentuate the generic, and maybe "subtitled foreign, no white skins" was considered scary enough for the mass audience.

King of Thieves (Teaser): well, Michael Caine, but this seems to be rather obviously wedged into the "geezer comedy" subgenre.

The Hate U Give: looks surprisingly appealing, possibly because it makes its characters vaguely interesting before starting the Message Story.

Support The Girls: …I can see what they're doing, but somehow it doesn't work even slightly. Maybe because I don't believe in a T&A-themed restaurant that also respects its workers.

The Predator: well, that's interesting; pretty much all the annoying-kid stuff from the teaser is gone, making this look much more like a proper action movie. Well, a modern proper action movie anyway. But alas I've already seen the teaser.

Zoe: girl meets AI, girl loses AI… same old story. May be interesting, particularly if they dump that ghastly soundtrack.

Beautiful Boy: white men can't communicate with each other. Yay.

Action Figures 2: um, OK. Well, it's up front about what it is: the chance to see people get injured.

Juliet, Naked: by Nick Hornby, so it'll have manchildren and not being able to be young again. Oh look, so it does.