Movie trailers

[avram]

Just saw the trailer for the upcoming I, Robot movie, and it looks terrible. I don’t just mean that the trailer depicts a movie that seems to miss the essence of Asimov’s stories, although that’s also true. (A better trailer in that respect would have spent a little more time emphasizing how important the Laws of Robotics are, and how dramatic it is that a robot seems to have killed someone.) It’s also just chock full of really stupid and unfunny character bits, attempts at comedy that just fall flat. The movie’s clearly not a comedy, so why do they have to spend so much time telling us (badly) that Will Smith’s character is a funny guy?

The trailer for Van Helsing makes it look like it might be stupid, but it’ll deliver serious supernatural-butt-kicking bang for your moviegoing buck.

Comments

[meowse.livejournal.com]

I might feel differently if I'd read Bram Stoker's Dracula, or at least if it were as central a part of my cultural heritage as Asimov's I, Robot is.

If I watch the I, Robot trailer, and I try as hard as I can to pretend that whatever else it is about, it is not about Asimov's universe, the Three Laws of Robotics, or positronic robots in general--but is, instead, yet another Luddite Frankensteinesque clone with lots of little homunculi rather than one big golem--it becomes much more bearable. It's still not good, mind you, but it no longer defames my geekly cultural heritage.

It's not just that it misses the essence of Asimov's stories. I, Robot the movie has absolutely nothing in common with Asimov's book of the same name but the title, and a rather superficial and facile copycatting of the "three laws" structure. If you go to see it, go to see a Will Smith action/monster movie. You may not be tragically disappointed. But whatever you do, do not go see it to see I, Robot as a movie.

Van Helsing, though? Cheesy, yes, but I like it too! Absolutely ridiculous weapons, hordes of monsters inserted just for visual and visceral appeal--Hell yeah!

I'll be there for that one.

[jfpbookworm.livejournal.com]

Wow. And I thought Harlan Ellison's screenplay was lame.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

A repo man will not harm the vehicle nor the contents thereof, nor allow the vehicle or the contents thereof to come to harm.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

I think everyone realized that a meant-to-be-commercially-successful movie of I, Robot would be less than wonderful. The only story that springs to mind that really works as a movie would be Little Lost Robot -- and even that is extremely talky for film.

On the other hand, I saw a bare-stage script for Liar floating around once, and it lookd like it would work.

Now, van Helsing, on the other hand, I simply view as Castlevania: The Movie. So I'm definitely going to see it.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

I just noticed your music...

Poor M. and J., subjecting themselves to the horror of consumer-grade-plushie Luna and bad-wig Sailor Moon...

And endless terrible CG and rubber monsters...

[akawil]

Much like the animated version, Live Action Sailor Moon is, despite the truly phenomenal cheesiness, oddly engrossing. And the acting (after the first few episodes) is surprisingly good.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

It's a bad trailer. It's trying very hard to make this look like Another Will Smith Smartass Comedy, but it also looks like it took every piece of comedy in the entire film and put it in the trailer. The opening of the trailer is slow and stilted. That's just bad trailer-making, and I have no idea what the film will actually be like, or even if it will be even slightly good.

(Strangely, what this reminds me of was seeing a trailer for the Nathan Lane/Robin Williams The Birdcage which was edited to make it look like a Robin Williams Zany movie. Which it emphtically isn't; Williams gracefully spends most of the film as the straight man while Nathan Lane gets most of the jokes and Hank Azaria pegs out the camp-o-meter.)

[avram]

Yeah, probably a bad movie, but definitely a bad trailer. It’s about a third of the way through before you get any hint of what the movie’s supposed to be about, and it’s not like that first third sets up any sort of surprising payoff which would justify it.