I realize that this post's title is redundant, given the quality of summer movies. That said, some are worse than others.
I haven't been paying any attention to movies this year. I read a book or two a week while doing cardio at the gym, and I've been downloading and watching Anime semi-regularly (Downloading = regularly. Watching = semi.) but I've not been in a theater since seeing Milk on a date back in January. Yes, my last movie was on a date, but movies aren't something I generally do on a date. I would with a woman I knew pretty well; Malaya and me saw dozens of films a year when we were living together; but it's not the sort of thing I'm likely to do on an early date. At that point I want to get to know her (and let her get to know me), so I'll always choose something more face-to-face interactive. And sitting side by side in the darkness is antithetical to that goal. Though I suppose I'd make an exception if the movie was intelligent/interesting, and we had time for good conversation/discussion afterward.
In other words, if it wasn't a "summer movie."
Since I haven't been seeing movies or anticipating them, I've not been watching trailers. In fact, the last few weeks when I've seen the box office leaders I've felt like a parent sitting and listening to their child enthuse about the newest trend. Polite patience and attention, without having a fucking idea what they're talking about. That I find myself pleased that I don't know or care is another issue.
I did get some urge for movie trailers late Sunday night, so I headed
to my usual source. It wasn't an especially lucrative visit. I like to watch trailers for big action movies or for thrillers or suspense films. I seldom bother with trailers for comedies, romantic films, or artsy stuff. This despite the fact that those types of movies are almost always superior to the crappy action movies I waste my time watching.
I was disappointed, since even though I hadn't gone looking for trailers in months, I'd seen almost all of the ones available. The T4 and Up and Star Trek trailers are very cool but I saw them long ago. Crank 2 and Wolverine have already come and gone. Angels and Demons is just rewarmed DiVinci Code. All of those films, and many others, have much more than their trailers listed; there are TV spots, 5 or 10 minute previews, etc. I never watch those, since if it's a movie I want to see I don't want any more spoilers than the trailer spilled, and if it's not a movie I want to see I don't need to waste 10 more minutes confirming that bias.
The only two I ended up clicking on were G.I. Joe and Transformers, and I watched both trailers against my will.
The
trailer for Transformers 2 isn't bad, and would almost interest me in the film, if not for the fact that I still remember the
improbably-profitable first one. I'd largely forgotten that movie, which I've not seen a second of since exiting the theater 2 years ago. This might be an unfair statement, given that I've never subjected myself to WaterWorld or BattleShip Earth, but Transformer was inarguably the worst movie per dollar of budget I've ever seen. And yes, I saw all 3 of the Star Wars prequels in theaters, after various relatives or girlfriends dragged me along. They were bad, Transformers was much, much worse. I just
read my review from back then to remember what was so bad about it, and um... everything. Okay, then.
And no, I'm not saying the Transformers 2 trailer is any good, or that it makes the movie look any good. But lots of stuff blows up and there are pretty colors and you can almost see up Megan Fox's sweaty plastic leg into her precision-tooled plastic vagina. The movie's plot looks LOLable; scenes of that stammering, annoying kid running around doing some kind of
A Beautiful Mind homage are fantastically cheesy, and the fact that the most advanced robots in the universe still can't invent non-cancer kazoo-sounding voice chips continues to be a winner. But no, I can't in good conscience imagine stting through it. Fortunately, when I date I keep rolling stuck-up bitches, the IG doesn't like action movies, and Malaya's husband isn't leaving on any extended summer trips, so the odds of one of my friends wanting to see it and insisting I go along to keep her company are quite low.
Elsewhere, the
G.I. Joe full trailer is no better than the teaser was, months ago. I have no idea who the audience for this one is, and I'll be surprised if it makes good money. It looks cheap, and it's a parody of itself. If you sat through that trailer and were then told it was a spoof, a sort of viral ad for Team America 2, I would believe it. The whole trailer is nothing but action movie cliches, explosions, bad special effects, running screaming mobs of people, slow motion physical impossibilities, and unknown actors and actresses in military costumes firing guns and smirking. If there's a plot in the trailer (or the film) it's certainly not hinted at here.
Perhaps that's the idea, and they're marketing to an entirely mindless "stuff blows up" demographic, but I can't believe that's enough. There's no sex appeal, no marketable stars, no product or political tie-ins, and the property itself was last seen as an astonishingly stupid kids cartoon in the 1980s. I realize that a discouragingly high percentage of adults will spend money on almost any pile of shit that reminds them of their childhood, but isn't this one taking that too far?
Inspector Gadget didn't exactly set the box office on fire, and that was a far better cartoon than G.I. Joe. Remember
Speed Racer? Flop! And that movie actually had an awesome trailer. Has someone green-lit The Smurfs yet? Fraggle Rock?
He-Man, again?
Finally, this would have been a great post a month ago, before the film opened to massive FAIL. But have you seen the trailer for
Battle for Terra? I saw it months ago, and just started in shock. It's not an awful trailer, but it was immediately clear this movie was going to fucking crater. It's a 3d cartoon set in the far future, with the last survivors of earth sailing throughout the universe looking for a planet to call home. They find one inhabited by peaceful, hippy-like aliens. The humans decide to invade, like Cortez into South America, intending to use their vastly superior technology to slaughter the natives. And then there are lots of scenes of frightened aliens running from explosions while bloodthirsty humans laugh.
So um... who is the target audience for this? It sounds like one of those painful, "learn a lesson through your tears" type childrens books. Humans are bad, technology is evil, we're recreating the genocidal conquest of the New World, etc. I'll give them points for honesty, since peaceful Star Trek bullshit aside, that's probably what humans in space would actually be like, under those circumstances. But who wants to see an ugly, poorly-animated cartoon about it, with no A-list voice talent or even any cute sidekicks to draw in the viewer?
No one, that's who. And yes, 20/20 prognostication is pretty easy 2 weeks later. But this is exactly the reaction I had when I first saw the trailer, a month or two back. I just figured at the time that they'd been carpet bombing (so to speak) Nickelodeon and other kid's channels, and that there was successful advertising going on for this film; it was just taking place on kids' TV and other places entirely off my radar.
Labels: movie trailers
