Erik Paschall January 12th, 2015 - 5:07 PM
Welcome to the Weekly Trailer Roundup, where we count down the top five trailers released in the past week, “top” being defined any way we want to at the moment…exciting, ridiculous, best, worst…
These are the trailers that, for one reason or another, you should be paying attention to.
A movie trailer’s most basic task is to tell us something. Mainly that the movie it’s promoting is good, but other little things as well: what type of content audiences are in for, how to feel about the characters, how to feel about ourselves. Whether or not they succeed is often irrelevant to their entertainment value. It’s like watching our children try to play sports; we’re just happy they tried. So this week we honor the trailers who tried their darndest to say something.
#5 – Ant-Man, for trying to tell us riding on bugs is epic
Seriously? You have Michael Douglas building us up with a “great power/great responsibility” speech, and you pay it off with a tiny man wrangling a wasp. Batman v Superman better hope it can top this.
#4 – Run All Night, for trying to convince us Liam Neeson isn’t playing his character from the Taken Movies
As if threatening people over the phone wasn’t a big enough clue, he’s also trying to protect his family from bad guys. Nice try.
#3 – Chappie, for trying to make us think it’s this year’s Robocop
It did a good job too, with the focus on the robot police, and someone whining about how artificial intelligence is bad, but only a specific type of artificial intelligence because the one I use rocks. But the title character expressing emotion is where it tipped its hand.
#2 – Maps to the Stars, for trying to make us think it’s an action-thrill-ride
What is up with that thudding, amped up score? Is this David Cronenberg or Christopher Nolan?
#1 – Big Game, for trying to tell us, “If you only see one Samuel L. Jackson movie this year, make it this one”
Actually, between Hunger Games-style bow and arrow survivalism, 9/11 hyperbole, speeches about blood and destiny, Jim Broadbent doing an American accent, and Finland, Kingsman may have its work cut out.
The rest:
