By Christopher Stipp December 30, 2005

BATMAN BEGAN

1. BATMAN BEGINS This is it.

Of all the trailers I watched this year (which is roughly about 8-10 a week times the number of weeks in the year which adds up to a lot of variation) I have to give my superlative praise to this trailer right here.

No matter how creative the plot, how precise the art direction or costuming or how teh cool the action sequences were in the eventual movie this trailer made geeks believe in the restorative powers of Christopher Nolan’s abilities.

Sure, you had Christian Bale as the Dark Knight, that girl who seemingly looks tranquilized in every photo you see of her now, Ms. Holmes, and the old school powerhouses of ebony and ivory, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine respectively, but there is something else afoot in this trailer.

What usually happens in a franchise trailer is that you’re usually pelted with how great it is that this character is coming back to the screen and there is usually lots of ADD moments where you are nearly compelled that the movie is going to be the second coming, incarnate; but that doesn’t happen here.

I posit that this trailer was created with the idea that this was going to be the first picture to ever capture Batman in the way that was long since jettisoned in the wretched sequels which followed Tim Burton’s very first outing. And you see it as soon as the trailer begins.

You’re not blasted with fights, chicks and dicks with guns blazing in a crimson hellfire. You get Bruce. Little Bruce. Falling down a well. With Liam Neeson narrating.

I bet Warner Bros. were either stunned that the trailer starts out this way but it’s great viewing because you’re gingerly moved from boyhood to manhood in short time. It’s effortless and you’re not even aware of it.

You can feel the momentum building when a scruffy Bruce Wayne is picked up in his jet, clean and ready to face the nefariousness which plagues a wonderfully rendered Gotham City.

It crescendos in the last third of the trailer when you see Morgan has a hand in Bale’s transformation into Batman, his full-on visage only teased in quick moments of Bale doing his derring-do in wonderful sepia tones.

There are no voiceovers, hardly any cards to distract you in the pacing and the best part, for me any way, is seeing Batman seemingly hanging in mid-air as he swoops in front of a tenement as he barrels towards the camera, the picture dissolving into dozens of bats.

Nothing is given away, the ending remains a mystery, you’re not spoiled on a single thing and this trailer ends the way every single trailer should end: it makes you want to see this movie.

This deserved all the success it had and it would be larcenous, pure ignorance, to not attribute part of that success based on the way this film was brought to the audience in the form a beautifully crafted trailer.

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MIAMI VICE (2006) Director:Michael Mann
Cast: Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Gong Li, Naomi Harris, Ciaran Hinds, Elizabeth Rodriguez, John Ortiz, Barry Shabaka Henley
Release: July 28, 2006
Synopsis: The cocaine cowboys of the ’80s are gone, but Miami’s Casablanca allure, the undercover cops and the attitudes of Michael Mann’s culturally influential television series have been enhanced by time in the feature film version of Miami Vice. Ricardo Tubbs (Foxx) is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born intel analyst Trudy, played by British actress Naomie Harris, as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders. Sonny Crockett (Farrell) [to the untrained eye, his presentation may seem unorthodox, but procedurally he is sound] is charismatic and flirtatious until-while undercover working with the supplier of the South Florida group-he gets romantically entangled with Isabella, the Chinese-Cuban wife of an arms and drugs trafficker. Isabella is played by the Chinese actress Gong Li.

The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged. The intensity of this case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one-especially for Crockett in his romance with Isabella and for Tubbs in the provocation of an assault on those he loves.

Miami Vice, as a large-scale feature film, liberates what is adult, dangerous and alluring about working deeply undercover…especially when Crockett and Tubbs go to where their badges don’t count.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis, nay, Prediction: 2nd Runner Up for Best Comedy in 2006. Colin Farrell’s sexual prowess on video all aside, he really does look like a ponce in this opening sequence.

His slicked back hair and that gauche suit/t-shirt look is downright laughable. I think what’s more about the opening of this trailer is that you a piss poor execution of the plot device where a protagonist, or antagonist (you find a good example of this in SNATCH), takes a word out of the dictionary and goes on to explain it like it’s going to lead to some great moment of revelation to the person on the receiving end of the information. I think I don’t like it because I just don’t believe Colin is all that intelligent.

The appearance, the cinematography, of the opening events of this trailer feel like it’s from COLLATERAL 2; it’s not so much a bad thing but you’ve got Foxx reprising his place in the next Mann property and it’s just a bit jarring to see him once again in almost the same kind of light and situation.

Aggravation, though, leads to pleasure when we get some baddies pulling out their weaponry and shredding our hero’s pimp ride. And just when I think we’re going to be regaled with an all out fire fight between our po-pos and the heavily armed opponents we’re thrust into a music video.

I mean, for fuck’s sake, I’m launched into an episode of Total Request Live. I get choppers, speed boats, clubs and our cops making out with a crazy amount of sleaze bags. All that’s missing is that little circle on the bottom of the screen where some wayward teen who looks like they’re one layer of lip gloss away from being sold into sexual slavery while blithering like an idiot to their friends who just, like, won’t believe they made it on television.

I really don’t know where the plot is between the lines here.

Can anyone tell me?

I mean you have Colin and Jamie playing like they’re cops but, like HEAT showed all of us, the cop lifestyle is one that is sometimes beset on both sides with violence and heartache. This? This looks like a commercial for dudes to get into law enforcement so that on the very first day on the job when they’re writing parking tickets to some slob who pulled their H3 into the handicapped spot without a proper placard they can silently mutter about how full of crap that piece of advertising was.

I can’t say I won’t at all see this film, because I am a fan of Mann, but who here can see this trailer and tell me that it looks just as good as what he’s done in the past? The sounds of crickets chirping underneath the stench of Colin’s fake accent is enough answer to me.

That really IS a bad look for Colin. Suit jacket, black t-shirt, dress pants, handlebar moustache? He should be selling cars down at the local used mobile home dealership not holding a badge.

X-MEN 3 (2006) Director:Brett Ratner Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Shawn Ashmore, Daniel Cudmore, Alan Cumming, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos Release: May 26, 2006 Synopsis: When a cure is found to treat mutations, lines are drawn amongst the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier (Stewart), and the Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organized under Xavier’s former ally, Magneto (McKellen). View Trailer: * Large (QuickTime) Prognosis: I can’t lie, this is just one funny trailer. Let’s see why this movie, and you can quote me on this, will not achieve the same kind of fiscal success and adoration that the first two films achieved. One reason why this movie will not engender the same kind of proud geek ownership of mutants done right is all in Kelsey Grammer’s make-up job. He looks like a cross between a Blue Man Group stage production of Beauty and the Beast and, well, a Smurf version of the Thriller video. Now, I’ll be nice with the music that opens things up. It’s really good, minimalist background noise that offers a different approach to the Taiko drumming which usually accompanies so many action flick trailers. It’s sparse but it’s quite effective in driving the mood of the action on the screen. Further, even though, by its nature, this is a teaser trailer we linger for a while too long on the opening image of an X-Door. I don’t know why the pause so excruciatingly long to me but when you watch and re-watch this trailer you see that there isn’t a reason for it. We then see our principal players walking with their superhero swagger on the screen. Now, I don’t know if anyone else will find this amusing but the shot of the full team walking in the underground lair of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters almost looks like the result of a game called, “Whose Agent Is Strongest?” You’ve got Halle Berry, an almost perfunctory character in both previous films that really should’ve been killed off, taking point. I don’t know why this is the case as she’s useless to the plot. You’ve got Hugh Jackman following up but, with better reason, should’ve been the main focus as I don’t see STORM: THE LIGHTNING STRIKES being made into a film anytime soon whereas Hugh’s got a nice payday coming because he knows how to shake it on the screen. And then you’ve got Anna Paquin and the rest of the funky bunch strolling behind them as if it’s a portent of who’s going to get playing time in this movie versus everyone else. Speaking of playing time, I think that the next scene of people fighting in what looks like the borrowed, apocalyptic remnants from the set of TERMINATOR 1 and 2 is actually of the danger room. I could be wrong but Hugh’s noticeable indifference to it all could be that it is all fake or that he’s lost all hope that he has to shuck and jive alongside a furry travesty that looks like it was constructed with blue spray paint and pubes or that Halle whined so damned much about wanting more screen time. Next we get our glimpse of Angel. I liked Six Feet Under. I liked the ending of that show so much that it may have very well been the greatest ending to a program in recent memory but Ben Foster was downright creepy as all hell. I know actors are paid to play parts but he freaked me out with his whole confused sexuality/stalker/suicidal persona that I just imagine Angel is going to have some intimacy issues or that he’s going to be caught giving a good rogering to the entire aviary population of the San Francisco Zoo. Magneto’s presence is pretty nice while the car flipping trick he does with his powers is, well, unoriginal; I just wished there was something a little more “flashy” he could do. Now, and this is fucking hilarious, go to the part right after this when Magneto is addressing some of his tribe in the middle of the forest. Pause it. Okay, okay, off to the right yeah there’s Jean Grey. She’s alive, that’s great, whatever, but on the other side, way over to the left, you’ve got Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut. He’s standing there with his super duper helmet next to his side but he also seems to have super abs. I mean, holy hell, one ab stretches the length of his torso. Where the hell did the effects guys go for training, the Rob Liefeld School of Anatomy? I’m still laughing over that. I mean, it looks exactly like what it is: a rubber suit. Whoa, now if you slow down again, you can see the first appearance of The Beast. Again, the laughs just don’t stop. I can understand why Singer didn’t include him in X2: because it looks ridiculous. It’s just shameful yet surprisingly funny. I don’t know why the slo-mo of Cyclops’ glasses coming off is really needed, I did like the shot of him just losing it whilst standing on the edge where his hoochie decided to get all hari-kari on us but that’s quickly supplanted with the now alive, evil Jean Grey who will no doubt be shifting her loyalties as some kind of incarnation of the Phoenix. We get more shots of The Beast, goddamn what it must have been like for Kelsey to have this make-up applied and questioning, on some level, what a fool you look like and then you get more snippets of Wolverine going his raised eyebrow thing as he lights stogie after stogie. Magneto applies the same damn paralyzing hold on Jackman as the originality surges through the screen and I am left wondering if all the action of this movie is going to take place in either the danger room, the forest and the school’s grounds. That’s all I am really seeing here. I just don’t know what this movie will do when it comes out. I can’t see anything here that makes me think this will be anything less than a mild letdown of what we’ve all come to expect. I want to be wrong, I do, but what here gave me hope that I am? Nothing. Not a thing.

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