A little while ago, I reviewed the teaser trailer for this movie, and my initial impression was that it looked too dark and muted. Thankfully, the newer trailers make the movie seem much brighter and more in line with the original in terms of tone. Unfortunately, something about the remake still seems a little off to me, and I finally realized what it is: the dragon is a total dick in this version.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children started as a novel by Ransom Riggs, which, sadly, I have never read. It’s now certainly on my to-do list, though, after seeing this trailer.
I only recently saw the full trailer for Horns, Daniel Radcliffe’s newest movie, and it looks like a fun Halloween flick, to say the least.
Vague plot spoilers and trigger warning for discussion of rape after the jump.
I still really fucking dislike Michael Bay, yet it seems I’ll never be able to escape him.
Maybe my opinion is already clouded by the fact that Michael Bay is behind this, but to me this just looks like Transformers with turtles. And if you don’t know my opinion on the live-action Transformers movies, it’s that we don’t need any more of them.
One of my all-time favorite books is becoming a movie and I am more than a little excited.
If you aren’t excited about Lucy, then you are wrong. This looks like by far one of the best and most original movies I have seen in years.
At first I thought this movie, though fantastical, was supposed to be set in our universe, but according to Wikipedia it’s a little more dystopian. The premise of Lucy is that the world is pretty much run by the mob, street gangs, drug addicts, and corrupt cops. So though it may seem that the movie is, for the most part, set in our world, I get the impression it’s a little more corrupt than even we are used to. Lucy, played by Scarlett Johansson, is a young woman living in Taipei, Taiwan who is forced into being a drug mule for the Taiwanese mob. After being kidnapped and sexually assaulted (or nearly sexually assaulted—it’s unclear in the trailer but I’m sure no less traumatic) the drugs that were put into Lucy’s stomach start leaking. Rather than killing her, the drugs end up heightening her brain’s processing ability and giving her superhuman powers. Eventually, Lucy contacts Professor Norman, a neuroscientist played by Morgan Freeman, to help her understand her developing new powers, and presumably to help her not lose her humanity as she gains more and more awe-inspiring abilities.
It’s getting closer to that time for another Captain America movie. To start off, this trailer looks to have everything that we would want in a comic book movie—and by that I mean violence, explosions, and what looks to be the Helicarrier crashing into the ocean. It survived The Avengers, but it doesn’t look to be surviving this one.
Two years after the events of The Avengers, Steve Rogers resides peacefully in Washington, D.C., struggling to adapt to contemporary society. However, after a S.H.I.E.L.D. compatriot is assailed, Steve becomes entangled in a mystery that may endanger the globe. Together with Natasha Romanoff, Captain America attempts to uncover the growing machination while fending off hired hit men. When the entire scheme is discovered, Captain America and the Black Widow must recruit the aid of the Falcon and soon encounter an unanticipated and powerful adversary—the Winter Soldier.
Spoilers after the jump.
A while back, I reviewed the teaser trailer for Thor: The Dark World, and I was considerably underwhelmed. I feel a lot better about this trailer, but it hasn’t really done much to allay some of my grievances—such as Jane Foster being a damsel in distress and not having a clear antagonist outside of dark evilness.
However, this trailer also delves into something else that I don’t so much as hate as I am greatly amused by: Thor and companions trusting Loki who is clearly not trustworthy. This is a common problem in the comic books. Everyone, despite what Loki’s done in the past and despite how much they hate and distrust him, still decide to go through with plans that absolutely require them to not be betrayed by Loki. And every time, it never ends well. And so the comics keep going through this loop, where the story has to keep coming up with reasons for all the characters to not just kill Loki—and even include him in their heroic missions—and be done with it.
As mentioned for the last trailer, the plot this time around is as such:
Set one year after The Avengers, Thor battles to save all the Nine Realms from a mysterious enemy older than the universe itself. However, a primeval race led by Malekith, who is out for revenge, intends to plunge the universe into darkness. Confronted by an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot overcome, Thor must reunite with Jane Foster and set out on a dangerous journey that will force him to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Alright, I still don’t really know what Malekith’s goal is, and neither trailer even seems to want to expand on who he is for the sake of non-comic-book-reading audiences, but at least this trailer is a little more clear on Loki’s involvement. The previous trailer didn’t show Loki until the very end, probably to get a rise out of all his fans, whereas this trailer features him a lot—but I still don’t know why Loki’s being involved at all, and we’ll probably have to wait until the movie’s release to get a clear answer on that. Unfortunately, the impression I have thus far is that in the movie Thor’s taking after his comic counterpart and making some really dumb decisions.
This conversation happens in the trailer:
Heimdall: We face an enemy known only to a few.
Thor: Known only to one.
Now, either Heimdall just lied, or Thor’s making a really stupid decision, and even Loki calls him a fool for it. If there is anyone else—anyone at all, which there seems to be, according that conversation—that person will probably be a lot more trustworthy than Loki, and Thor should enlist his help instead. I admit that I love Thor, but let’s face it, he really has never been the brightest Avenger. I love Loki too, and I’m glad he’s in this movie, but come on.
As an aside, Frigga seems particularly badass here. It’s a pleasant change.
While the first official trailer for Catching Fire focuses entirely on the events leading up to the 75th Hunger Games and not the Hunger Games themselves, this one focuses on both. I’ve already talked about the earlier trailer here, and my excitement hasn’t decreased in the slightest.
I’ve always had some grievances with the first movie, but all in all, I thought it was relatively close to the source material, and it’s hard to ask for a better book-to-movie adaptation. So far, it looks like Catching Fire will be just as faithful. However, I am a little disappointed that we barely see the transformation of Katniss’s wedding dress in this trailer, which I’m really looking forward to see as soon as the movie comes out.
For the last trailer, I lamented that we didn’t get to see any of the other tributes, but not this time around. We get glimpses of a whole bunch of them: Finnick, Johanna, Enobaria—whose teeth look amazing, by the way—and a few others. We also get to see some of the arena, as well. This trailer reminds me a lot of the one trailer for the first movie.
They both begin with some dialogue, followed by the reaping, time spent training in the capitol, before ending with a quick shot of the contestants right after entering the arena. It’s not entirely similar, as both books do have differences in their plots, but it’s still the same basic formula, and hey, it’s a formula that works. However, I do have to admit that in some ways I was disappointed with the second book, because occasionally it felt as though I was just reading the first book all over again, except with different characters and stakier stakes. In other ways it didn’t, so I have always been a little torn on how I feel about Catching Fire. I fear that I may have this same issue with the movie. My biggest grievance with both books is that they introduced characters that I instantly fell in love with before killing them—Rue and Mags—but I’d hardly call that bad writing. The audience should care when a character dies. It should mean something.
Unfortunately, November is still a long ways off, and this movie cannot be released soon enough.
Are you excited for this movie? I know I am. However, I’m a little torn on whether or not I’m actually willing to spend money to go see it. On the one hand, actually supporting this movie by seeing it might be irresponsible. On the other hand, seeing Johnny Depp’s oh-so-not-racist portrayal of a Native American might be too good an opportunity to pass up.
This is not a movie I have high expectations for. To be honest, I really don’t know that much about Native Americans, their cultures, their tribes, etc. Unfortunately, I have the distinct feeling that neither do the makers of this movie, with the possible exception of Johnny Depp himself.
Johnny Depp plays the character Tonto, an imaginary Native American. Okay, no big deal, right? Except, the design of Tonto in this movie is based off a painting from a white man’s interpretation of Tonto. This painting:
Other than not being a Native American himself, Jack Sparrow does look pretty much like this inaccurate portrayal. In fact, he looks just like Jack Sparrow with face paint and a bird on his head. I’m guessing this isn’t going to do much for representation. Johnny Depp even said in an interview that he took this part to change how things are for Native Americans in movies, to show them that they’re “still warriors.” To be fair, however, Native Americans for the most part seem to be pretty excited for Depp’s portrayal, and Depp is a member of the Comanche tribe. I should mention, however, that Depp is not Comanche by blood, and he only was adopted into the tribe after filming the movie. He has said that he guesses he has some Cherokee in him, but until now, he hasn’t participated in that heritage. I want to assume that the Native Americans interviewed about Depp’s part know more about their culture than I do, but I don’t think anything here is leading up to a non-racist portrayal.
Depp might be part Cherokee. Good for him. I’m distantly related to some Cherokee people too, but that doesn’t mean I know anything about the culture. And it certainly doesn’t mean I can represent it in any manner. In the end, I really think that this movie should have just cast an actual Native American for the role.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I truly hope that this won’t be racist, outside the white-washing. Otherwise, this looks like it would be an interesting movie.
Lady Geek Girl and Friends 