Hey everyone! Travis from The Movie Encyclopedia here with another edition of Trailer Talk Thursday where I bring you the latest and greatest trailers to hit the silver screen.
Well oddly enough this has kind of been a slow week for trailers. I realize I'm gaging this based on my trips to the movie theater this week as well as my daily check of IMDB and Trailer Addict but there really hasn't been a ton. There was a Paul Teaser Trailer and as anyone whose read my site will know, I am excited for Paul. The problem is the trailer is only a minute long, mostly music and kind of hard to critique and seeing as how this is a critique of trailers I kind of need more.
But I did find two trailers, one that's been shown at the past three films I've attended and one that popped up on Trailer Addict that I know is already causing a big reaction, and trust me it's negative. So to make up for one really potentially bad trailer I decided to add a little something extra and that is the music video for Daft Punk's De-Rezzed. Why? Because Daft Punk does the score for Tron Legacy and because of that the music video is basically a movie trailer but with music emphasized over words. Also the version I got has some new footage, albeit brief, of the movie and any Tron fan should be excited by even a minute of new features.
Anyway onto our first trailer: The Rite-
As you probably guess this is the cover of the book that the movie is based on. No official poster has been released at this time but I'm guessing it will probably end up looking like this.
Anyway, The Rite is the latest film from Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom, whose known for his mostly for his Swedish work but has directed some English Horror/Thriller films like Stephen King's 1408 and Derailed. It's based on a book by Matt Baglio and happens to be written by him as well with help from Michael Petroni (best known for Till Human Voices Wake Us). It focuses on a man who studies to become a priest but is a little bit iffy on the idea of exorcism. So he travels to the Vatican where they happen to be commissioning priests to become exorcists around the world due to a abnormally large increase in demon possessions. It's also apparently based on a true story, which would be news to the Vatican since they deny that they ever commissioned priests due to an increase in possessions. Seems a bit Angels and Demon-y to me but I don't want to get into church politics.
Anyway here is the trailer-
So what do I think? Well I think that Warner Bros and New Line are making a mistake by making it out to be a horror film. To be honest with you I think this will be more of a drama mixed with some horror/thriller elements when the demon possessions start rearing their ugly head. Lately it seems studios are hell bent on marketing any supernatural film (unless it's made by Eastwood) as a horror film. Most of the time they are but what it forces the trailer guys to do with some of these movies is either be really vague, use deleted/altered footage, only show the scary parts even if there are only a few, or just show a lot of screaming. The problem with that is when audiences go in expecting a horror movie, sometimes they will be disappointed. Case in point? The Last Exorcism.Anyway that's what it seems Warner Bros has done with the trailer but hopefully people will see by the inclusion of Hopkins that this is probably going to be a legitimate thriller and not just some cheap horror flick.
Next up is one that has audiences divided, without even showing a single frame of footage...Gulliver's Travels.
1. Real 3D film: does this need to be in 3D? Really? And I'm willing to bet it's conversion 3D too...sigh.
2. "From the Studio that brought you Night at the Museum": I hate the "Studio that brought you" crap. I'm serious. When your film's creators and stars lack any excitement by name alone that you have to drop the studio's name to get excitement? That's bad. Want an example? "From the studio that brought you Alien, Die Hard, Speed and Home Alone comes Gulliver's Travels." Doesn't work does it?
3. Jack Black: Now don't get me wrong I like Jack but he's not one of those actors I run to the cinema to see. I mean he's funny and he CAN do serious, but from the trailer alone he's just trying to be his goofy self that he seems to have mastered and while that may appeal to some, it doesn't appeal to me.
That was the poster...the POSTER. Now here is the trailer-
So what do I think? GAAAAAAHHHH....Sorry...It doesn't look funny, interesting and if you like the source material at all you will stay away. I could see this maybe being good for kids but seriously? I'm not a fan.
So to get the bad taste of that film out of your mouth, here is a nice piece of Tron Legacy. I'll leave you with that and I will see you all next week.
