Thoughts on the New 2016 Comic Con Trailers

The 2016 San Diego Comic Con is here, and unfortunately I've never been able to go to one, but the convention still manages to deliver for those who can't make it, primarily due to the abundance of posters, concept art, movie news, revelations, and trailers that have come out. Today was a pretty gigantic day for Comic Con news, and while I haven't been following the event nearly closely enough to have an exhaustive list of updates to talk about, I did see quite a few trailers that I thought I'd give some thoughts on. I'll say right off the bat that I won't be reviewing the trailer for Blair Witch. Originally masquerading as Adam Wingard's The Woods, the film has now been revealed to actually be a secret sequel to 1999's The Blair Witch Project. It would've been nice for the movie to be completely kept secret until release, although I realize from a marketing standpoint why that would've made absolutely no sense (although, if I remember correctly, didn't the first movie take like $10,000 to make or something?). But wouldn't it be bananas for there to be a movie in this day and age that just appeared out of nowhere and people could watch without knowing much? It certainly would be a counter-point to most modern trailers' sensibility of outlining the entire plot. But, c'est la vie.

Was the shitty Pokemon movie news from Comic Con or did the news just come out the same week as Comic Con? Whatever, this week it came out that Legendary had acquired the rights to a live-action Pokemon movie shortly after Nintendo's announcement that they wanted to venture into filmmaking, and obviously coasting on the new-found success of Pokemon Go. Unfortunately, unlike my idea for a live-action Pokemon movie (sort of a Goonies-style thing with scrappy young kids who want to catch all the Pokemon to stop a bully or a mean adult or whatever kids' movie trope you want), they'll be making it a...Pikachu detective movie? Fuck it, it can't be as bad as the emoji movie, I guess.

One other snippet of news to come out of Comic Con so far that I enjoyed was the putting to bed of rumors that Brie Larson would be cast in the titular role of Captain Marvel in 2019, with Marvel Studios making the official announcement this week and Brie tweeting this absolutely perfect photograph. Marvel's string of fairly decent blockbusters and my undying love for Brie Larson should make Captain Marvel a fun time in... three years. Anyway, on to the trailers.

First up is the second trailer for Marvel's Doctor Strange, out this November. I know absolutely nothing about Doctor Strange the character, and the connection between being a surgeon and a sorcerer is kind of wonky to me but I'm sure there'll be ample reasoning given that this is an origin story movie. Between the kaleidoscope Marvel logo, the ripple punch in the skyscraper, the shards of air, and the window and pillar perspective tomfoolery, this movie looks set to have second-half-of-Inception-level mindfuck visual effects, which I'm all for - and it'll probably look palpably dope in 3D, which is great for my eyes as well as Kevin Feige's wallet. Chiwetel Ejiofor's wi-fi crack at the end shows that this will have Marvel's requisite bordering-on-fourth-wall-breaking snarky quips, which is welcome until it inevitably becomes stale after their 40th movie.

And while I love Mads Mikkelsen and he looks baller as the main villain, it looks like this movie will be devolving into another pretty typical Marvel "god-man destroys the entire planet" effects party of a climax. Which is fine, but like, we gotta switch it up soon. Oh well, we got Guardians 2 in 10 months.

Fantastic Beasts, also due out in November, is the ninth Harry Potter movie of sorts. I guess this is the book that Harry reads/studies from in the books? That's neat. J.K. Rowling is writing the screenplay which is cool, and it's being directed by David Yates, most famous for directing the two Deathly Hallows movies, also known as two of the three Harry Potter movies I've ever seen.

I hate Eddie Redmayne. And, no surprise, his character is the one I'm the least interested in from this trailer. I always love me some Colin Farrell though, so it'll scratch that itch. Honestly, without some semblance of an idea of who these characters are, I can't find myself getting excited for anything other than the amazing visuals. The Potterverse is blessed with an amazing costume designer (Colleen Atwood) and production designers (Stuart Craig and I think Stephenie McMillan is working on this one as well), and unlike the early-2000s Potter movies, the visuals in this look pretty great, even if that big-nosed creature at the 1:20 mark looks a little wonky and probably could've been pulled off better with really great makeup. Unless he's like a two-foot fairy or a goblin or whatever Harry Potter shit.

I'm sure if I were a Harry Potter nerd there would be 400 things in this trailer for me to bitch about and find vague connections to things and notice minutia they changed from the book. But I'm only a movie nerd, so all I can say about this trailer is that the movie seems solid and Eddie Redmayne should take his award-winning cutesy boyish grin back to the world of sub-par modeling.

"Does Batman live in Bruce Wayne's basement?"

"No, Bruce Wayne lives in Batman's attic."

God, this movie's gonna be great. I'm really happy this movie is carrying over the absolutely beautiful computer-animation-faking-stop-motion-animation style from the first Lego Movie. And the casting is brilliant - Will Arnett as Batman, Zach Galifianakis as the Joker, and Michael freakin' Cera as Robin, who seems hilarious in his bits in this trailer. The creation of his costume was so clever and hilarious. Phil Lord and Chris Miller should be proud. 

It seems Alfred will be playing a larger role than I thought in this, acting as Batman's dad in the most comedic sense possible. I'm hoping he's a fleshed-out character rather than just a comic relief, as it seems the Batman/Robin duo will have more than enough of the "comic" aspect down. While this trailer didn't really have the comedic timing perfection of the original two teasers, there were a lot of good funny bits in it. And I'm glad they're teasing out the Joker. Long story short, my body is ready for the Lego cinematic universe.

Okay, I'm cheating because this isn't a Comic Con trailer and it's a TV movie, but come on, this trailer came out today and how am I not gonna talk about it? I'm definitely gonna watch this when it premieres, even though all signs point to it absolutely sucking. I would say the girl is kind of cute but I have a sneaking suspicion she's underage so I'm gonna not do that even though I just did.

Anyway, this looks like shit. Just bring back the game show. No one watched Legends of the Hidden Temple for its deep lore and enticing backstory. We watched it because it was hilarious to watch bewildered children stumble around on a styrofoam TV set and suck dick at solving puzzles (okay, the bit with the silver monkey in the trailer was pretty funny). And to hear Olmec crack puns to the coked-up host. This movie is trying to pander to 25-year-olds who love the show but uses humor for the 13-and-younger crowd. And since Legends of the Hidden Temple wasn't exactly the epitome of world-building (which it really didn't have to be being a game show), this is essentially just "three dumb kids walk around in a generic cave with some Olmec jokes". 

Also, are these kids, like, Nickelodeon celebrities or something? They seem perfect for it, and if not, I dunno why they didn't go with more bankable child actors for this dumpster fire of a movie. Are they fucking Vine famous? Christ, they probably are.

Okay, this movie looks pretty dumb, I'll admit it. But it looks like a lot of wacky fantasy fun. I honestly pictured this as much more drab and straightforward with British guys talking about things and then like, maybe a gritty war scene in the rain at the end. I guess I should've expected something more stylish coming from Guy Ritchie, and this looks like a lot of fun. That giant elephant thing and the burning skull knight... thing both look really cool. And I do love screaming men stabbing each other and stuff like that.

I wish I had more to say. I'll see this movie.

Tom Hiddleston? Brie Larson? Samuel L. Jackson? John Goodman!? Oh my God, this movie's got quite the cast.

So, this is the second film in Warner Bros's classic monsters cinematic universe. Apparently the plan is to pair up Godzilla and King Kong in the future, which would be absolutely bananas, especially considering, based on the sparse images that this trailer shows of him, Kong is massive in this movie. Glad they're sticking with the Godzilla method of teasing him in the trailers. I'm sure tons of people will piss and moan again about Kong only being in like 10% of the movie like they did with Godzilla a couple years back. Did people really expect the whole movie to revolve around Godzilla rather than him just being the main threat? Sure, it's called Godzilla, but it's not about him going to his day job and finding love and reconnecting with his estranged son. He's a giant lizard; any more than 10 minutes would be overkill. Plus, this way we get more time to stare at Brie Larson and Tom Hiddleston's hot faces.

As for the look of this film, man, did it also blow my expectations away. I thought this would be a fairly generic-looking action blockbuster, but this movie's use of color on the island seems really effective, especially in those bits where they're in the misty graveyard with the giant bones that's lit by the sickly yellow color. And Skull Island itself looks surprisingly lush and pretty. And that pan-up shot to Kong's lower half from the helicopters will probably make for a jaw-dropping reveal in the theater. Yeah, this'll probably be a good IMAX movie. Color me suddenly interested in Kong: Skull Island.

Yeah, so apparently, we have a full trailer for the Justice League movie. Not a teaser, but a full-fledged trailer, even though we're 16 months out from release. I mean, I'm not complaining. Just weird.

I gotta say, this looks like the most solid Zack Snyder movie probably ever. As not much of a fan of 300 or really any of his other films, I was happy to see some actual character and humor brought in, especially after the dour, borderline nihilist Batman v Superman. Wonder Woman and Bruce Wayne's little chat about Aquaman (who I still don't think I'll be able to take seriously) clues us in that they'll have some actual chemistry, which is a quality that was suspiciously missing from the entirety of the last DC film. Although it seems Zack Snyder's color palette is still limited to white, black, and gray. And the new inclusion of the Flash will only exacerbate his most obnoxious directorial signature of excessive slow-motion (I mean, Christ, that Batarang catch was like a third of the trailer). But if we can have a silly Snyder-y movie with significantly less Snyder-y characters, I'll take it. Baby steps.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Ezra Miller from this trailer. His "I need friends" line was funny, but his dialogue and mannerisms in this trailer just give me this weird inkling of a feeling that his quippiness and awkwardness will most likely get on my nerves quickly. But, we have literally over a year for that feeling to evolve. But, man, is Ben Affleck killing it as Bruce Wayne/Batman or what? I still can't believe people were outraged that Affleck would be Batman. I always assumed he'd be one of the better parts of Batman v Superman, and I was right. And he looks like he's fully slipped into the role in this one, and he looks to be having a lot of fun.

"Well, that's neat."

Isn't it nice to see DC having characters that aren't soulless Hot Topic shirts? Anyway, this is the last one I'll be talking about because this is by far my favorite trailer out of Comic Con so far, barring a Rogue One one later. I said earlier that the best part of Batman v Superman was Ben Affleck, and my second and third favorite things were Wonder Woman and the fight choreography. DC seems to really know how to film gritty, in-the-dirt, up-close combat that just feels visceral and is like nerd boner Viagra. That was evident in BvS, and it seems even more evident here. The mid-air bow shot, the hand-to-lasso combat in that warehouse-looking place that looks straight out of an Arkham game, the blocking of mortar with the Shield of Whatever - I don't have any constructive analysis of these things; they just look cool. Which is all a Comic Con trailer needs to do.

The World War I setting seems interesting. It looks like it'll provide some really nice lavish sets and costumes, which I'm a minor dweeb for. And Gal Gadot is Wonder Woman; she looks great. It also helps that she's freaking gorgeous, of course, but y'know. I'm sure the secretary/slavery bit and "what I do is not up to you" bit will be called feminist-pandering by like four people on the Internet, but I just see it as her character being a badass. But don't worry, I fully expect dozens of thinkpieces on the political implications of every frame of this movie from now until its release. I'll just enjoy the movie.

But yeah, this looks like a good one, and the rest of DC's slate looks fairly solid so far. Overall, I'm enjoying what's coming out of Comic Con and will write up another quick post if any other trailers come out.

Also - I've been wanting to review the new Ghostbusters, which I know I'm super late on, but I'm finally home from vacation tomorrow night, so I'll try to get it out by Monday or Tuesday. I want to get the releases I've been slacking on squared away because August is gonna be pretty packed. So yeah, stay tuned for that.