Man, is it a great time to be a geek or what? As a childhood toy and comic book freak, who would have thought that summers in my 30’s would be spent enjoying (for the most part) Hollywood’s take on those super heroes and supernatural characters that shaped my imagination back then. But honestly I’m not sure there’s been a better slate of geek-flicks than what’s shaping up this year. This is gonna be a blast! Keep reading for trailers, clips, and my unwelcome opinions…
The first on the chopping block is Watchmen. I’m the biggest G.I. Joe fan on the planet, I don’t think many people would debate that, but I gotta tell you, part of me is looking more forward to Watchmen than I am Rise of COBRA. This movie looks fantastic, and as a huge fan of the original graphic novel (which I am re-reading now for the 12th time in preparation for the film) I am on pins and needles. I mean, come on…check out the trailer:
I mean come on. That is amazing. Very unlike the typical frenetic, high-paced, high octane music montage, this just “oozes” cool. You can pinpoint exact scenes from the book and man…I just can’t wait. March 6th is getting closer every day!
After Watchmen comes Wolverine: Origins. The first two X-Men movies blew my skirt up in a big way (especially X2), but X3 was a bit of a let down, to be honest. And really, I had very little confidence about a Wolverine solo story. Let’s face it, he’s the most over-exposed super hero in the comic realm, so we really need a film focused 100% on him? Well… when you can work in Gambit, Deadpool, the Blob, and rework Sabretooth’s movie character into something more credible, then maybe there is something to this.
Then I started seeing the trailers and TV Spots, and man, I’m now SOLD. It’s quite possible the end result will be far from my expectations, but the trailer layout has been great, there’s some very cool scenery and special effects littered without, and it looks like a nice focus on some mutant supporting cast to boot. I think I can get into this one, too. Check out the trailer for that one:
Along with the trailer, Sony has been sprinkling out some pretty neat TV spots as well. These are all courtesy of TrailerAddict.com.
Outcasts:
Brothers:
Legends:
I’ve seen this movie getting hammered pretty hard by the comic faithful, so maybe it’s because I’ve sort of fallen out of the comic world that I can better appreciate what this movie is doing since I’m not intimately familiar with all of the gory details. Whatever the case, I really think the movie looks pretty sweet, even if it is kind of getting a bad rep amongst the comic book diehards. This one hits May 1.
Then we get into the toy world… as I’m sure everyone reading this post knows, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters June 26, and TrailerAddict.Com has that trailer, too:
The first movie was blind, mindless fun…I’ve been re-watching the first film lately, and actually the jagged editing and the frenetic writing are unfortunately more pronounced on multiple viewing, which is kind of lessening the enjoyment of the film for me. Watching it once, enjoying the crazed action, the special effects, and trying to ignore the sloppy parts is easy, but now that I’m checking this out for the 4th or 5th time, each viewing is sort of knocking it down a rung on the ladder. It’s still great, mindless action, that goes truly overboard, and the sequel looks as if it’s trying to top this in every way.
And honestly, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. There is such a thing as “too much”. In the first film, a major complaint was that the robots didn’t get enough “personality”. They were fairly bland and emotionless, good for some nice action scenes and silly one-liners, but not much else. Well, supposedly for the sequel the cast is being expanded to FORTY robots. Forty. If Michael Bay couldn’t handle the personalities and tendancies of ten robots, what the heck is he going to do with forty of them? There seems to be a LOT going on here…maybe too much. From combiners to the goofy looking twins, to Arcee who is supposedly made up of three separate mini-bots, to a human “pretender”, and a supposedly mythical legend behind it all… it seems like too much. But, you know what? I’m still going to see it opening weekend in Imax with a few buddies, and I’m certain it’ll be a two-hour roller coaster ride. Sometimes you don’t need anything else.
Speaking of roller coasters…wrapping up the quartet of “geekfest” films this year (and that’s not even counting stuff like Star Trek) is of course, G.I. Joe: Rise of COBRA.
Nothing defines “roller coaster” like this one. G.I. Joe has been near and dear to my heart (some would say too near and dear) for the past twenty-six years, and honestly I had long-since given up seeing a G.I. Joe film on the big screen. Paramount and Hasbro have made that possible, though there is much debate among the community as to whether or not it was worth the trouble.
Look. This is going to be what most Joe fans are expecting. This isn’t G.I. Joe from the 80’s, it’s not even G.I. Joe from the 90’s. It pulls elements from many different facets of the Joe brand (yes, including the much maligned Sigma 6) and on first look will rub a lot of the fandom the wrong way. Me? I’m just looking forward to seeing some of my favorite characters in a movie theater. Will it be good, will it be bad? I have no clue, I’m just looking forward to seeing for myself. I love the trailer, I’m giving it a shot, I don’t think anyone can ask for more than that.
Regardless of the end result of any of these four movies, you can’t argue that 2009 is shaping up to be a very nerd-friendly summer film season, and I for one am just going to enjoy the ride.
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