Trailers Galore

Looks like 2012 is going to be a good year for fans of 1980s cartoon and toy franchises.

First up is next year’s Transformers: Fall of Cybertron videogame, with a nice surprise at the end.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation gets rid of a few characters from the first film and introduces a few more. It still looks quite ridiculous though, but not as much as the first film.

Men in Black 3 is set 10 years after the last film, which was indeed released a decade ago. There’s not much to excite me about this, but maybe a later trailer will show more humour and action.

December 13, 2011
Categories: Movies . Tags: . Author: Kris Bather . Comments: 2 Comments

Second Skyline Trailer

Directed by the Brothers Strause (Aliens vs Predator: Requiem) Skyline opens on November 12. The trailer looks good (and yes, that is Donald Faison from TV’s Scrubs) but not entirely original, with a combo Independence Day/Cloverfield vibe going on.

October 7, 2010
Categories: Movies, News . Tags: . Author: Kris Bather . Comments: Leave a comment

United Moon Destination

Time for 3 quick movie reviews.

The Damned United tells the true (though embellished here) tale of manager Brian Clough’s disastrously short tenure leading hugely successful English football team, Leeds United. Taking over from much loved manager Don Revie, Blough’s non-nonsense, honest approach to playing made him no fans, or won his team any matches. Now, I’m certainly not a huge fan of soccer in the ’70s, but this is a riveting and dramatic film. Michael Sheen, after proving he has playing real life characters down pat in the excellent Frost/Nixon, does so again here. He’s confident, charismatic and unavoidably sympathetic. The closing credits and extras reveal what a great manager and showman Clough really was. This is what a sports film should be like – not the endless ‘uplifting’ gridiron fluff America trots out, but engrossing, surprising and real.

An indie sci-fi film directed by David Bowie’s son does not scream potential. However, ignore that doubtful voice. Moon is a revelation. First-time director Duncan Jones shows he can stretch a thrifty budget and expand upon concepts often visited in this genre. Sam Rockwell carries the film as its protagonist and solo performer, for the most part. He is brilliant and allows the film’s surprising narrative to hang on his shoulders with great skill. He acts besides himself, unravels a conspiracy and talks to his computer GERTY, as voiced by Kevin Spacey. This is the kind of film that science fiction can do so well, but rarely does.

The Final Destination is the last entry in this series that began in 2000. The 3 previous films are superior to this one, as they welcomed the dark comedy and grisly deaths. This film (in useless 3D) tries hard but doesn’t reach the same horror heights. The subtlety of death as an invisible character is gone here too. Objects move on their own, not seemingly affected by gravity and bad accidents. There’s the usual cookie cutter teens who get picked off one by one, but none of them are really worth caring about.

March 4, 2010
Categories: Movies, Reviews . Tags: , , . Author: Kris Bather . Comments: Leave a comment

Pandorum’s Moon

Here’s a couple of new trailers I’ve stumbled across recently. Moon stars Sam Rockwell and is co-written and directed by cinematic newbie Duncan Jones. When I saw the first few seconds of the trailer I thought it was a quirky comedy. It’s not. Rockwell plays Sam Bell in this unique sci-fi tale. Bell is an employee of a mining company called Lunar, who send him to the moon to save our energy crisis. Kevin Spacey provides the voice of Bell’s on-board computer, Gerty. Apparently Bell’s not alone on the moon however. It opens in June and the trailer seems to indicate a restrained intelligence, like Solaris or Sunshine.

Next up is another sci-fi film, but this one seems more mainstream and replaces Moon’s thriller aspects with some horror. It stars Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster and opens in September. It makes me think of Dead Space, because I’m playing it at the moment, but Event Horizon could fit too. It centres on two crewmen who wake up on a spacecraft with no idea why, or what they’re doing there. That’s the beauty of sci-fi; something for everyone.

May 15, 2009
Categories: Movies, News . Tags: . Author: Kris Bather . Comments: 2 Comments