RogerBW's Blog

September 2019 Trailers 01 October 2019

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: Hatred is a vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their meanness, and make it a pretext for sordid tyranny.)

Doctor Who Season 26 collection: all right, not my usual fare for these posts, but let's face it if you've got something like this to shift -- even in the non-piratey world, all the stories were released individually between 2003 and 2008, so the sort of fan who may buy this has already had them for a decade -- all you've got to work with is the new special features and the nostalgia factor. So you might as well have some fun with it.

Jojo Rabbit: looks a lot better than the teaser did, though still too far in the comedy direction for my taste.

Bad Boys for Life: yeah, for anyone who enjoyed this, we have utter contempt for you, so we're making it farce. Meh. And for everyone else, it's just another turn-the-handle disposable comedy.

Just Mercy: Oscar season already?

Mister America: why would I want to watch this story? Why would anyone? Haven't there been enough "arrogant white man gets into politics" stories by now?

Black Christmas: is there anything more to this than generic kid-focused horror? Why not? Why wouldn't I watch Anna and the Apocalypse again instead? And it wasn't even all that good.

Wrinkles The Clown: is there anything more to this than generic kid-focused horror? Why not?

Doctor Sleep: looks more coherent than the teaser did, but also much more like generic horror. To some extent I suppose that's unfair, since a lot of generic horror copies King, but I think it's reasonable to say that King himself is now copying King.

Like A Boss: at least there's some female empowerment, but it feels very by-the-numbers, descending into generic embarrassment humour by the end. Everyone in this cast has done much better.

Radioactive (Teaser): trailers always make it hard to tell, but much to my surprise this looks as if it might actually be worth watching.

Midway: because Bay and Bruckheimer did Pearl Harbor and made a lot of money, so Roland Emmerich gets to do this battle. Sure, these pretty boys don't look as if they've grown up in the Great Depression, but I don't think there are many young actors these days who can. And the action seems decent.

Countdown: my word this looks bad. The basic idea of taking a familiar thing and making it scary isn't a terrible one, even if it is desperately overused, but… no, I'm just not even slightly convinced.

Groundhog Day - Like Father Like Son - Virtual Reality Game: minigames. Great. Still, it's a good fit for the computer game "practice until you can do it" gameplay I suppose.

In the Tall Grass: visually interesting but rapidly turns generic. (And of course nobody has phone GPS.)

The Secret Garden: if you think it's timeless, why did you re-set it into the Second World War? And indeed why did you turn it into a fantasy with blatant magic?

Cunningham: doesn't engage me, but looks well done.

Dark Waters: a film that would probably have been more popular a few years ago… with a strong side story of "city guy learns to live again in a small town".

Scandalous: "what was to come" was that you ran out of money, sold out to a Trump fan and turned into just a mindless repeater of press releases.

The Rhythm Section: very pretty conspiracy thriller, but still a conspiracy thriller and I see it hitting the standard beats even in this trailer. On the other hand, great primary cast and it looks is if there's a bit more action than is usual in these things.

Fractured: the Vanishing Hotel Room returns. Which suggests an obvious explanation.

Ordinary Love: people arguing about boring things, meets illness porn. Nice to see Neeson finally being allowed to play something other than grim man with a gun, though.

Frozen II: OK, I guess, but it doesn't seem to have much to say apart from "these characters are back".

El Camino - A Breaking Bad Movie: probably more interesting if you've seen the series and know who these people are.

Uncut Gems (Red Band): so who are these people and why do we care about them?

Wounds: of course it'll all be a Plot, because in these things it always is.

The Irishman: Scorsese does what Scorsese does. He's his own genre, I guess. Slab-sided old men don't really appeal to me.

Spies in Disguise: I mention this only because the first trailer was released in November last year, and this has been sitting on the shelf since then. Shows real confidence, that does.

The King's Man: lots of special effects in support of the same old story.

See also:
Anna and the Apocalypse


  1. Posted by Dr Bob at 02:40pm on 01 October 2019

    Damn, I was hoping the Like A Boss movie was based on this SF book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27272162-like-a-boss

  2. Posted by Ashley R Pollard at 08:54pm on 03 October 2019

    Bad Boys for Life: a definite watch. Loved the first two.

    Frozen II: One to see with the godchildren.

    The King's Man: That looks like it might be very good.

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