Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are
to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I hate
everything.)
Spies in Disguise:
I don't feel much sympathy for Will Smith having to do this kind of
crap; he's foisted enough crap of his own on the public over the years.
Five Feet Apart (Teaser):
sick kid romance? Yup, sick kid romance.
Divide And Conquer - The Story of Roger Ailes:
ain't it great that the dead can't sue? But it's probably too late to
fix the people who need to see this.
The Secret Life of Pets 2:
OK, and?
Missing Link: generic
action comedy. Smallfoot just barely made its budget back (not
counting the theatres' share) after six weeks, and that sort of
failure usually halts similar projects.
UglyDolls:
no, no, let me guess, is there a line of toys to go with this by any
chance?
Pokémon Detective Pikachu:
...OK? I'm sure this has something to say to somebody. And the whole
concept is more moral than cockfighting, because?
Toy Story 4 (Teaser):
all this has to say is "these characters you like are back, and
there's a new one". Which I suppose is a thing people might want to
know.
Gloria Bell:
yeah, but it's a remake. By the same director, but it's still a
remake.
Dumplin':
I don't find the setting engaging, but the story looks as though it
might work.
Fighting With My Family:
Another unengaging setting, but interesting people. Might keep an eye
out for this, even if it's likely to be desperately sanitised.
Wonder Park:
they dropped the terrible cover version of Wonderful World, and this
almost looks appealing. I must be running low on bile and vitriol.
Time to refuel.
Dumbo:
…and there we go, that's more like it. How you generate the Uncanny
Valley with a CGI elephant? Disney apparently knows how.
Everybody Knows:
lots of little vignettes of emotional payoff, but none of the building
up which earns that payoff and makes it actually work. (The "why do
I care about these people" problem in very large writing.) Great cast,
but the trailer does nothing to make me want to see it.
Anna and the Apocalypse:
a zombie musical. A Scottish zombie musical. Why not? Looks as if it
might be quite fun.
Once Upon a Deadpool:
will probably appeal to people who enjoy this kind of thing.
The Intruder:
looks as if it's trying for some of the same kind of racial
sensitivity as Get Out, but with more dreary horror cliché instead
of the cleverness.
They Shall Not Grow Old:
the film restoration work is mostly very good indeed. Slapping it
together into more than an hour of tiny incidents, presumably to make
it a thing you can sell tickets to and broadcast on the BBC, rather
than keeping it as a bunch of clips of a few seconds each, feels like
the wrong treatment for the material.
The Lion King (Teaser):
well, it's pretty enough, I suppose, but if someone wanted to put this
much money and computer time into a film, why not make an original
one? (Yeah, I know, the accountants are in charge and they insist that
known properties are more reliable earners than unknown ones.)
Artemis Fowl (Teaser):
oh, look, it's a moderately successful series of children's books by a
writer with no sense of shame (he wrote the sixth book of The
Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy) that hasn't been made into a film
series yet. Better do that then. If there's any actual inspiration it
doesn't show in this teaser.
State Like Sleep:
looks gorgeous, though I wonder how hard it'll push the "everybody is
lying" button, something I find easy to overdo.
Happy Death Day 2U:
the original cost $5 million to make and people paid $120 million to
see it, so of course there was going to be a sequel. A promising
setup, and I particularly like the idea of trying to save everyone,
but I fear it'll be more of the same for most of its running time.
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