Welcome back! In addition to hangovers and a batch of quickly abandoned resolutions, a brand new year brings a completely new mess of trailers to whet the film lover's appetite. There is a pretty good crop of movies coming out in late spring/early summer that have just dropped their trailers, and it looks like we've got a pretty interesting movie season ahead of us.
"Epic Movie"
20th Century Fox
Jan. 26
These movies have overstayed their welcome. While the original "Scary Movie" was funny and had a decent sense of humor, each of the incarnations since have degenerated further into I don't even know what. This latest installment attempts to parody the big-budget epics of the last few years, but only succeeds in looking like a string of unoriginal and shoddily produced sketches from "Saturday Night Live." Unfortunately, I can see younger audiences flocking to see this when it opens, since it seems marketed almost exclusively to 15 to 21-year-olds without any regard for coherent plotting or intelligent humor. What's next: "Action Movie?" Oh wait, they already made that one - it was called "Last Action Hero."
"Seraphim Falls"
Icon Productions
Jan. 26
It is interesting that it takes British lead actors to make a good American western nowadays. This looks like it has all the classic elements of a revenge tale combined with a wilderness chase along the lines of "The Edge." The plot revolves around two former Union soldiers who clashed over the burning and massacre of a town during the Civil War. Now one has traveled into the West with the other tracking him, hell-bent on making it right. While Liam Neeson's American accent could use a little bit of work, seeing Pierce Brosnan act as a frontier bad-ass will be more than worth the price of admission.
"Black Sheep"
Icon Productions
March 2007
I have always had a soft spot for the horror-comedy genre. "Shaun of the Dead" and "Evil Dead" are two of my favorite films, and "Black Sheep" looks like it could take a position right up there with them. The plot revolves around genetically engineered sheep who turn out not to be the softies humans are used to, but actually bloodthirsty killers. Brilliant! Throw in the possibility of a human-turned-sheep-by-a-bite and I'm there. Although no date has been set, it should hit theaters this semester.
"Ocean's Thirteen"
Warner Bros.
June 8
There is really not much to the teaser aside from the cast wearing various disguises (most of which include bizarre facial hair) and Al Pacino working on his menacing act. Other than that, all I can say is that the cast is notorious for having the time of their lives on and off set while filming. This has shone through in the previous films, so with any luck they can finish out the trilogy with a bang.
"Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"
20th Century Fox
June 15
Meh. I was not very impressed with the first movie in this series, so seeing that the trailer had dropped for a sequel did not exactly wow me. The trailer itself plays out as an extended sequence featuring Johnny Storm chase the Silver Surfer through the skies and streets of New York City. I like the concept behind the trailer, but it just doesn't knock my socks off the way the studios probably thought it would. We can only hope the filmmakers learned from their mistakes in the first movie and listened to the Fantastic Four fanbase.
"Live Free or Die Hard"
20th Century Fox
July 4
Like "Ocean's Thirteen," this was just a teaser, but it looks to have all the hallmarks of the "Die Hard" series: gunfire, explosions and Bruce Willis looking bad-ass. It will be interesting to see how this series fares under the direction of Len Wiseman ("Underworld"), but it shouldn't be very hard for him to pull it off. Besides, it takes place in D.C., and who doesn't want to see a movie where cops and criminals tear up the city they live in? I know I do. My recommendation for July 4 is to get up early and head to the theater to see this as a double feature with "Transformers." I don't care what order you see them in - both blockbusters promise to entertain and should succeed spectacularly.
