Thursday, November 19, 2015

Magicians, Male Models And Naked Zac Efron Pop Up In Five New Trailers

Note: The trailer for Dirty Grandpa is NSFW, so proceed with caution.

The release of a huge new blockbuster like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part Two (which, by the by I'll have a review and a spoiler discussion written up for that particular movie by tomorrow morning) will of course spur a deluge of new trailers. But the amount of new promotional trailers released over the past few days has reached critical levels considering the first high-profile comedy (The Night Before) since Vacation nearly four months ago is also opening this weekend and a whole bunch of 2016 comedies wanna get promoted on that new Seth Rogen vehicle.

So let's go through some of these new trailers together, shall we? First up, let's see what Derek Zoolander is up to in the new trailer for...

Zoolander 2
Some gags of this trailer just don't work for me. The selfie stick joke is shot in such a way that makes it almost incoherent, and, similarly, an extended bit involving an androgynous model played by Benedict Cumberbatch feels both insensitive and poorly executed in terms of comedic timing. The broad slapstick involving Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) was more successful and anything involving Mugatu in this trailer worked like gangbusters for me (that muscle suit joke is particularly brilliant). Considering how much I've enjoyed past Ben Stiller directorial efforts (Tropic Thunder is one of the great comedies of the 21st century and I'm on of the two people that enjoyed The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty), so hopefully Zoolander 2 as a film is more amusing to me than its more hit-or-miss trailer.
Now You See Me 2
Considering it's only 60 seconds in length, there's really not much to discuss about Now You See Me 2, which has ditched the title Now You See Me: The Second Act for its much more generic final title. Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment obviously is hoping this follow-up to their 2013 sleeper hit can become another franchise for them, though the intense competition Now You See Me 2 is facing (it opens against The Conjuring 2 and Warcraft) may make it hard for those financially related dreams to come true. Two final observations from me; (1) considering that the Four Horsemen took down Michael Caine in the last movie, why is he "so glad to see [them] again"'? Also; I was expecting Daniel Radcliffe's appearance to carry a far more overt and wink-wink line of dialogue. specifically, I expected him to say "I'm still trying to get a hold of this whole magic thing."
How To Be Single
Dakota Johnson showed some real chops in Black Mass, and it's not hard to imagine her going onto great things acting-wise once her Fifty Shades Of Grey dues are paid (Natalie Portman fared excellently after those Star Wars prequels after all). How To Be Single doesn't look exactly like what I'd imagine to be her best possible movie but....eh, I guess I've seen worse. Most of the raunchy one-liners here feel uninspired (though for some reason Rebel Wilson Gandalf line at the very end got a chuckle out of me), but the premise for this one has potential and you've got some talented actors romping around here, so maybe the final film will be better than this more generic than anything else trailer.

Fifty Shades of Black
....OK. That exists. I have to review it in three months. Oh goody. Let's move on...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrMssmcxD5M
Dirty Grandpa (Red-Band Trailer)
On second though, let's go back to Fifty Shades of Black. At least that one only starred the guy from A Haunted House, so it's not exactly squandering talent, whereas this insulting looking garbage is wasting the likes of Robert De Niro and Zac Efron (who showed serious comedic skills in Neighbors). I hated every single second of this trailer and honestly don't know if I can muster the energy to watch this filthy, sexist garbage in its feature length form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1zlkaPpMsA

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