RogerBW's Blog

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I didn't know the cybernetic death squads would be used for violence.)

Mike Wallace Is Here: I've heard the name. Parkinson would probably be tbe British equivalent, but I don't suppose many people have had sufficient exposure to both.

Rambo - Last Blood (Teaser): without Stallone, this would be just another of the dozens of "angry man goes out to get revenge, because if we call it revenge he can kill lots of people without being a bad guy" films that come out every year. With him… is there really any difference?

The Kitchen: might be decent, but looks like hard work to watch. Thank goodness Melissa McCarthy is finally in a role other than "her har, look at the fatty".

Onward (Teaser): looks woefully generic.

Ford v. Ferrari: might work, though it has a strange lack of visual appeal perhaps because it's trying to look like nostalgic memories of the 1960s.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: in the wake of Stranger Things, kids-on-bikes is a genre. But as soon as you get away from the setup, meh, generic horror.

Luce: this sort of drama doesn't usually work for me, but this looks well-done.

Ad Astra: clearly more space fantasy than SF, but the hardware is pleasingly rooted in reality and the effects look decent; if it can get over the generic daddy issues and give us a real character, this might have some heft to it.

After the Wedding: solid cast, but somehow doesn't appeal.

Frozen II: well, lots of Boding. In itself that doesn't grab me. Might still work, but the things that'll make it work aren't on show here.

Doctor Sleep (Teaser): a haunted… blackboard? O…K. Oh, right, Stephen King, You are Special, and a sequel that nobody was asking for. Meh.

Official Secrets: yeah, but the bad guys did get away with it. And Matt Smith looks Smug, as always.

Ready or Not: heavy-handed even by the standards of horror. I assume it's trying to be funny.

Cold Case Hammarskjöld: yeah, yeah, but if you're going to say something that sounds like a conspiracy theory, you should at least have enough self-awareness to know you're going to sound like a nutter and try to avoid falling into those patterns.

Killerman: nasty unsympathetic men get greedy. Why do we care?

Point Blank: now, sure, there isn't much to these characters, but at least you take the few seconds to try to make them sympathetic. That's how you do it. I still don't particularly want to see the film, but at least it's making an effort.

Trolls World Tour: great big meh. This seems intended not to appeal to the children who are the nominal target market, but to their 1970s-veteran grandparents. Turn that noise down, kids.

Black and Blue: third film in this month with dirty cops. Has someone noticed something?

Queen & Slim (First Look): and fourth. Though this has a more appealing look than any of the others; doesn't hurt that it's not just about violence.

The Current War: of course you have to get Cumberbatch for this. Hey ho. If you scrub off all the interesting technological development and pare it down to personalities, I guess you get… this.

The Good Liar: some bad people use computers, therefore all people using computers are bad. Even Helen Mirren probably can't save this.

Charlie's Angels: the film nobody was calling for looks exactly the way one might expect it to. Also, Patrick Stewart has turned into a troll.

Midway (Teaser): looks very pretty. It's hard to screw up a "straight" war film, but Pearl Harbor managed it so I'm not cheering just yet.