Talking Trailers

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"When all else fails," my old (fictional) blogging mentor used to say, "Talk about some trailers that you have seen recently and why they make you a bit excited." Man I miss ol' Jimmy...

Firstly, I Am Legend, whose trailer debuted a few months ago, gave me mixed feelings when I first saw it. This is mainly due to the fact that I Am Legend is one of my favourite books, a book that I re-read at least once a year and have done since I was 17, a book that I always find something new in when I read it - and I just couldn't picture Will Smith as Robert Neville when the casting was announced. The trailer made me feel hopeful; New York looks incredible as this abandoned place, and despite my initial misgivings Will Smith gives across a great mix of despair and stoicism. However, something noticeably absent in the trailer are vampires - will they even be vampires? Will we have some weak enemies like in The Omega Man? We'll find out at Christmas...

WALL-E just blew me away in terms of its concept: the year is 2700, and WALL-E is the last clean-up robot left on a deserted earth, cleaning up after humanity's mistakes, all alone... Until one day when a female robot turns up from space and it's love at first sight. The trailer is a little lacking, although it does very well in terms of setting the tone of the movie. Apparently the first third of the movie or so is going to just be a silent film, simply observing WALL-E and his life, such as it is. I have high hopes for this film.



I've never read Beowulf, although I feel like I should have. I've never seen The Polar Express, but by all accounts I'm not missing much. I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan, and I have to say that that's what has swung the Beowulf film for me, the fact that he has written the screenplay (along with Roger Avary). Also, it looks pretty interesting from the trailer. Things aren't quite photorealistic, but then I don't think that is the intention with the whole performance capture thing at this stage, just to do things that would be incredibly difficult otherwise (i.e., show Ray Winstone at different points in his life from 18 to 70). Technology isn't the be-all and end-all, but it can make some wonderful looking things.

The final trailer is for... Well, no-one's really sure what this film is called. Is it called 01-18-08? Is it called Cloverfield? Well, it's probably called neither of these things, but it has a very interesting trailer... A giant monster, hand-held video cameras with impressive effects in to add to the realism, just regular people... With the way that it is being marketed I'm surprised that someone hasn't started calling this the new Blair Witch or something (although Blair Witch had a budget of $30,000 I think, whereas this has a reported budget of $30,000,000). The trailer definitely makes me want to see the film.



And let's face it, for a trailer that means "job done."