What the Hell is this Dragon Blade trailer? When was the last time that a swords and sandal epic was actually worth anything? Well, here we get a major film produced in China starring Adrien Brody, John Cusack, and Jackie Chan. The film was originally titled, “Tian jiang xiong shi”; literally, “Celestial General, Heroic Army” which is an infinitely better name than the generic “Dragon Blade”, especially since I am pretty sure there will be zero dragons and zero mystical blades. The plot focuses on a battle in antiquity over control of the Silk Road between corrupt Roman generals and Chinese tribes during the Han Dynasty. Somehow, I have watched this trailer three times and have managed to avoid even a single seizure from the dozens of quick cuts. I have, however, scoffed aplenty at the flat line readings, ridiculous dialogue, and downright confusing plot. Have a look:
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Tag: Action
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We got the first trailer for Denis Villenueve’s Sicario earlier today, and it was a real treat to finally see some scenes from this Cannes audience favorite. I case you’ve forgotten, this is the crime thriller about a FBI agent, played by Emily Blunt, who joins a task force to investigate cartel activity in Mexico. It also starts Josh Brolin and Benecio Del Toro as members of this team, and like all of Villeneuve’s films, there is more than meets the eye bubbling under its surface synopsis. It looks fantastic.
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The original Jurassic Park is a modern masterpiece with memorable and developed characters, a tight plot, and it helped usher in the modern use of CGI in blockbuster films, to boot. None of the sequels have ever lived up to the possibilities created by Jurassic Park in terms of story, character, or heart, and sadly Jurassic World is no exception – but it is closer than anything else. The film also partly succeeds as a meta-commentary on the failure of the modern blockbuster by dialing the dino-action up to 11. Jurassic World often draws attention to the prowess of the original and on the upwards creep of audience expectation, to the point that the final battle scene can only be interpreted as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on “bigger and better” CGI fights. What results is a fun-looking film lacking a coherent plot with broadly-drawn characters who are as annoying as they are forgettable – but at least four different dinosaurs face off in the climactic battle!
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It seems like 20th Century Fox was pleased with the response to its marketing onslaught for the new Ridley Scott film, The Martian. The film was originally slated for a November 25th release date, but the production studio announced today that the release would be moved to October 2nd, swapping places with another Fox property, Victor Frankenstein. While technically it is hard to determine whether this move represents additional confidence in The Martian, or fears about Victor Frankenstein (or both), I think we can make the most sense of this move by analyzing the context in which these films will now compete.
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Ever since those in charge of the Harry Potter franchise decided that they could make an extra movie near the end without anyone really caring, it has been a common practice, and the story usually suffers. It was the same with The Hunger Games franchise, as the first part of the final book was all set-up. Earlier this morning the first trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 was released online, and it appears promising. There is a distinct revolutionary tone to the snippets of action and conversations, and it is clear that this final film will attempt to deliver on all the wheel-spinning of Mockingjay Part 1 with a stunning climax.
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A sequel to a great film has to find a Goldilocks zone between two guaranteed recipes for failure. Should the sequel exploit the success of the original and attempt to re-tell the same story, it will feel derivative and add nothing. This is epitomized by The Hangover sequels. At the other end of the spectrum, if a sequel departs completely from the original, it feels isolated and disconnected, leading an audience to feel cheated of what they loved from the originals. The greatest sequels in film history use the characters and world from the originals and expand upon them. Like The Godfather Part II, a great sequel can delve deeper into major characters and explore their motivations outside of their original context from the earlier film. Or, like Aliens, it can utilize the critical component of the original in an entirely new environment or genre of story. The Raid 2, from Gareth Evans, accomplishes both of these feats by taking the Rama character (Iko Uwais, again doubling as the lead fight choreographer) from the original and placing him undercover in pursuit of an organized crime syndicate. Here we get to explore more of Rama’s world and character, and we are rewarded well for our journey.
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Last week we only had a few stills from Ridley Scott’s adaptation of the Andy Weir novel The Martian, but we have started this week off with a bang, receiving not only a neat little viral marketing video, but also a full-length trailer spanning three-and-a-half minutes! Clearly, the marketing department for this flick has decided to hit the ground running, so let’s go ahead and try to keep up. The story is described as Apollo 13 meets Cast Away: astronaut Mark Watney is stranded on Mars and has to improvise to both contact NASA to effect a rescue mission, and then survive for the requisite time it will take for the rescuers to arrive.
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There is an undercurrent of awkwardness in almost every large-scale disaster movie that is very difficult to shake, and it is especially evident in San Andreas. The movie very badly wants to tell us the story of heroism in the face of abject disaster – and to do that the narrative necessarily focuses on a handful of characters for the audience to relate to during the calamity. Unfortunately, when coupled with the reality of showing city-wide destruction, the massive loss of life that must take place off-screen begins to weigh down the popcorn-flick levity that San Andreas really wants to create. This very basic conflict muddies this movie somewhat, but judged on the scale of a fairly mindless summer blockbuster movie, it does far more right than it does wrong, and most of what it does wrong is almost an artifact of this kind of disaster movie. if you’re capable of ignoring the massive loss of life occurring beyond the edges of the screen and focusing just on the characters that San Andreas wants you to, you will certainly have a fine time. If you’re not, you may start to wonder why you care so much about one girl when San Francisco just went 20 feet underwater after all of the buildings fell down and people were still trying to escape.
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If you’re at all like me, then the second Jesse Eisenberg + Kristen Stewart pairing on the big screen might have evaded your feelers. I feel like I heard about American Ultra at some point, but may have dismissed it initially – even though I relatively enjoyed Adventureland (it wasn’t anything special, and I must admit that I have very little recollection of the plot specifics). Anyway, now that the Redband Trailer for American Ultra has been released, I decided to look into it in a little more detail. And now I’m pumped.
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The very best B-movies are the ones that do not take themselves too seriously and can create a playfully scary tone, hopefully while people run away from puppets or people in rubber suits. Gore is a plus, too. If these are the criteria, then Zombeavers is a champion. The scene before the opening credits (which have some really fun animation) has Bill Burr and John Mayer as truckers transporting some toxic waste (of course). Burr’s character isn’t paying enough attention and slams into a deer, losing a barrel of the waste in the process. The barrel rolls into the creek, and gets caught in a beaver dam, where it begins to leak. This is all the explanation we will ever get for the origin of the zombeavers.
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Plot and Theme 