Forthcoming Film Furore!: Dinner For Schmucks, The Losers, The A-Team, The Expendables, The Good Heart

OK, so we're running through a few films here, but with good reason. With Summer just around the corner, we're seeing a lot of trailers for big brainless summer movies. Three of the films we're showing you the trailers for are "team of badasses on a mission" movies: The Losers, The A-Team, and The Expendables.

But first, let's look at the trailer for Dinner for Schmucks. A remake of a French film, Dinner for Schmucks stars Paul Rudd as a guy who needs to bring a huge idiot to dinner at his boss's house to get a promotion. Rudd finds Steve Carrell, a well-meaning simpleton who stuffs dead mice and puts them into dioramas. There's not a lot in the trailer that's laugh-out-loud funny, but Rudd and Carrell are two of the most likeable comedians around, and the supporting cast is strong, including Zach Galifianakis, Bruce Greenwood, Kristin Schaal, Ron Livingston, and Jemaine Clement. We'll wait for another trailer before we make up our minds about this one.

Right, let's look at our men on missions. First up is The Losers. Based on the Vertigo graphic novel, The Losers are a badass special ops team that is betrayed by the government and left for dead. However, they decide to get payback. Produced by Joel Silver, who produced movies like Predator and Lethal Weapon back in the day, and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Sherlock Holmes and Orphan more recently, the film seems to be going for fun more than anything else. The film stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who came out of Watchmen with reputation enhanced, action queen of the moment Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek), newly crowned Captain America Chris Evans (Sunshine, Scott Pilgrim), The Wire's Idris Elba, and Jason Patric as bad guy Max. Director Sylvain White's resumé isn't great, but it's only his third feature. At the moment, this looks like the film with the greatest potential to not be a disaster

Now onto the A-Team. As we all know, they're four men imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit, who promptly escaped and if you can find them maybe you can hire them. They can also use whatever's in a room to create something destructive with the help of a quick montage. This movie version of the series is written and directed by Joe Carnahan, who must be looking for some of the pedigree he got with gritty cop thriller Narc, and lost with overblown muddled assassin movie Smokin' Aces. The cast is good, with Liam Neeson getting paid handsomely for playing Hannibal Smith, Hangover star Bradley Cooper as Face, and District 9's Sharlto Copley as Howlin' Mad Murdock. They're joined by Watchmen's Patrick Wilson as the villain, and Jessica Biel as the love interest. Ultimate Fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson stars as B.A. Baracus. The trailer looks like they're going for fun, but it's a sad fact that, despite what Seinfeld taught us, most movies that feature anything falling out of a plane and shooting back at the plane are normally crap.

And now for The Expendables. Sylvester Stallone has managed to get almost every action star to sign for this men on a mission movie. Sly himself leads his team of bad-ass mercenaries, made up of Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture into South America to take down evil CIA agent Eric Roberts. Oh, and he gets the jobs from Mickey Rourke, and Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenneger cameo as shady government guys. With this cast list, I'm going to see it no matter how bad the reviews are. It basically looks like a Rambo film, but with a bigger supporting cast. Let's just hope that Stallone wrote his co-stars actual characters, rather than just having them stand in the background. I'm still looking forward to it!

Finally, to counter the big budget stupidity, here is a trailer for a little indie film called The Good Heart. It stars Brian Cox as a grouchy New York bar owner who takes in homeless Paul Dano to groom him as his successor. This trailer shows off Cox and Dano, who look like they're giving excellent peformances, and it looks like a nice mixture of Jim Jarmusch-style humour and Hal Hartley-esque dialogue. This may well be worth seeking out.

Forthcoming Film Furore!: Scott Pilgrim and MacGruber

Yesterday the first official teaser trailer for Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Versus The World hit the interweb, with fans everywhere going crazy. The film marks Wright's first film without his Simon Pegg/Nick Frost support structure, not to mention his first film set in the US. Based on the popular comic book series, Scott Pilgrim is the story of the titular character's attempts to defeat his new girlfriend's seven evil exes. Realism is not the order of the day, with overblown actions sequences sure to abound.
The supporting cast is impressive: Brandon Routh (Superman Returns), Chris Evans (Sunshine), Mae Whitman (Arrested Development), and Jason Schwartzman are among the exes, Up in the Air's Anna Kendrick plays Scott's sister, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Death Proof) plays Ramona Flowers, the object of Scott's affections.
But our two major concerns lie with the tone and the star. Knowing silliness is all very well, as long it's entertaining. If the film starts to get snarky, the goofy appeal with surely fly out of the window. And have we had enough of Michael Cera? OK, so the part does seem to fit him like a glove, but hasn't every part he's played since Superbad?
Obviously, I'm being unfair as this is just the teaser trailer. But, this is, just, like, our opinion, man.


Next up is the moderately funny trailer for Saturday Night Live-spinoff movie MacGruber. The sketches were often hilarious, featuring Will Forte as an inept MacGuyver character who was constantly distracted from defusing the bomb by issues such as Pepsi sponsorship, his son's sexual orientation, and accusations of racism. But there hasn't been a good film based on an SNL sketch for a long time. Can MacGruber hold up to a feature length treatment?
Well, the trailer is OK. Forte seems to be on form, there's the impressive casting decisions (Val Kilmer as a villain called Dieter Von Cunth, Powers Boothe as MacGruber's boss, Ryan Phillipe), a couple of the jokes hit the mark, and it has the fantastic Kristin Wiig. But to be honest, it's not particularly inspiring.
That being said, every review of the film that's come out of the festival circuit has been overwhelmingly positive. Word is that the funniest scenes are definitely not in the trailer, the film is very much R-rated, and it's hilarious. It'll be interesting to see how the film fares on wide release, but we're looking forward to it.

Forthcoming Film Furore! Centurion

I've been a big fan of British writer/director Neil Marshall since his unashamedly entertaining squaddies vs. werewolves movie Dog Soldiers. He became a critical darling after the release of excellent horror The Descent, but lost some brownie points after Doomsday was a critical and commercial disappointment. Personally, I enjoyed Doomsday so much that I went to see it twice. Marshall is a superb genre filmmaker, and now he's bringing us Centurion.
Centurion is the story of the survivors of the Ninth Legion as they struggle to escape from rampaging Picts. The cast is impressive, led by Michael Fassbender (Hunger, Inglorious Basterds) as Quintus Dias, the leader of the survivors, and The Wire's Dominic West. Bond girl Olga Kurylenko stars as the head of the Pict clan chasing after our heroes, and Liam Cunningham, Noel Clarke and David Morrisey round out the cast. Fassbender has described it as a "chase movie", and the good cast and lean premise should appease those upset by Doomsday's excesses. There hasn't been a decent Roman movie for a while, and it looks like Centurion might fill the gap. Centurion comes to UK cinemas in April
Here is the trailer:

Recent Release Reviewed!!!: Avatar vs. Inception

***Disclaimer: Okay, just to stress, this article is about the trailers released so far for these two films. I have not been blessed enough to see any more of these two than any other human being is able to. Nor am I reviewing some crazy mash up of the two – though that would be pretty tantalizing.***

Now that’s over.

Like most film-fans, I’d been waiting with some anticipation for the return of Jim Cameron. Titanic aside, this was the man responsible for some of my best loved childhood movies (True Lies, Terminator 1 & 2 – what that says about my childhood, I’ll leave you to decide) and I was keen to see his famous temper fly with a new set of actors. Also, I was hoping for him to re-cast Michael Biehn in something. That man doesn’t get used enough. So after rumour upon rumour of a live-action remake of Battle Angel Alita, Mr Cameron throws a curveball and sends Avatar our way.

Simultaneously, also working off the bat of one of highest grossing films of all time (hur hur), Christopher Nolan has decided to let us in on his new work, Inception. Not much mind, the whole affair has been pretty hush hush, especially considering the dizzy heights reached by his last movie and therefore the increased interest. Despite the similarities these two directors have in regards to their previous films, the two couldn’t be travelling down more differing paths if they tried. Overall the sentiment leaked by both these films from the studios is that, in reward for their successes, they’ve been let off the leashes, allowed to take us to places only limited to their imaginations. I think that it’s incredibly interesting that, not only that two filmmakers are getting this extremely rare chance at the same time, but that we get chance to really see what these two personalities are really about.

James Cameron’s latest Avatar trailer opens with Jake Sully, our protagonist, wheel-chair bound, being told of a great opportunity off world. Cue an incredibly detailed, awe provoking shot of said planet. A voiceover begins where Jake tells us of his desire for a cause ‘worth fighting for’, whilst we feast our eyes on some bizarre pastiche of Aliens and the Lion King. In case you couldn’t see where this story is heading, some very nice military men are present to bring us up to speed. This planet is Pandora, it has floaty rocks and the local people, the 10 foot tall, bright blue, not the most realistic looking Na’vi, are pretty darn tough to kill apparently. This is unfortunate because they live on top of a resource which the military find very lucrative. What are the chances eh? So what’s the military’s plan? Well, they’re going to let Jake take control of a genetically engineered version of a Na’vi and send him in to infiltrate the camp. Apparently doing this will ensure that Jake gets his real legs back. From here things get a bit Dances with Wolves and Jake becomes accepted as one of the tribe, choosing them over the military. What’s made him decide this? Well, there is love involved, presented to us using some shots very reminiscent of the ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight?’ scene in the Lion King – this time with bigger cats’ eyes. From here on out, we witness battle scenes akin to the Ewoks vs the Imperial Guard from Return of the Jedi, but with both sides jacked up a notch. In fact, the military here seem like a direct evolution from the destructive force from Apocalypse Now. After some confusion in the middle of the trailer as to which side Jake is playing for, the trailer ends with confirmation that he is with the Na’vi. Cut to title. End.


Summing up the Inception trailer is much easier. For a start it’s barely a minute long and, unless the movie is just a collection of unrelated images, it gives nothing away to its plot. Opening with the sort of themed adaption of the Warner Brothers’ logo that we’ve come to expect with its high profile projects, Inception takes place in a big city – looking quite similar to the Dark Knight’s Gotham. A spinning top spins, Leonardo DiCaprio looks out of a helicopter window, Cillian Murphy (at least, I think it’s him) gets dragged away, gravity goes a bit weird, Joesph Gordon Levitt (*sigh*) runs at some one, Leo looks at the skyline, gravity continues to be odd, Joseph Gordon Levitt continues wrestling in said gravity, Leo wakes up, titles appear in an overhead view of a city. That’s pretty much it. I don’t think I’ve left anything out, though, given the cryptic nature of the trailer, if I have, it may just unlock the whole puzzle. Joking aside, it doesn’t reveal much but it has mystery to it. Overall, it is a very enticing trailer.

It has been greatly amusing and also surprising to read the quotes from the respective filmmakers about their projects. Both of them are shaping the direction that Hollywood films are heading down, even if James Cameron is the only one shouting about it. Despite all of Avatar’'s grandiose designs on representing the future in how blockbusters look and its grotesque budget ($500mil anyone?), it’s actually the more intimate project. Cameron has deliberately kept the sizes of his crew small in order to keep ‘consistency’1 with the work. Even on the current hot topic of 3D in cinemas, Nolan agrees that it is more ‘intimate’.2 Ironically, a $500 million film is James Cameron’s idea of a personal project, where as a small, intelligent film coming off the success of the Dark Knight, represents ‘grandeur’ and a ‘larger than life’ approach to filmmaking.3


Quality wise, there is no contest between these trailers. With respect to Mr. Cameron, his desperate attempts at ‘photorealistic’ images have really disappointed here. Sure, when looking at any shot of Avatar, your breath can be taken away quite easily with the amount of detail crafted into each landscape, however, compared to the detail of an IMAX camera, it looks nothing but cheap and, more importantly, fake. I personally cannot submerge myself into this world because it never suspends my disbelief. Considering that Cameron has been away for so long working on this film, the Na’vi themselves look beneath anything Pixar has put out during the last 5 years. However, after years of supporting Nintendo over Microsoft, Sega and Sony (I think I was one of the only people in my town with a Gamecube), I’m well versed in the argument that looks aren’t everything; in fact my main issue with Avatar is far more fundamental.

After Titanic, James Cameron has effectively been give free licence to make whatever he wants. Whatever story fascinated him, held his attention, made his imagination fly, he could bring to the screen and not one executive at any studio would have stood in his way. He chooses to bring Avatar – what does this say about him? Granted, I have not seen the film, but based on the information presented in interviews, soundtrack listings and the trailer, this looks like a bland and insipid motion picture. For all his attempts to present it as high art (3 hour running time), it looks just as shallow as any Michael Bay robot destruct-a-thon. One feels that, although like Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, the level of hype is set so high that Avatar could not possibly live up to it, it wouldn’t hurt if it didn’t look so rushed. To me, the attitude that the trailer gives off is one of indifference. I’m well aware this is not the case, but in my mind I could quite easily picture James Cameron spending the majority of his 10 year sabbatical playing video games and then suddenly remembering that he had to make another film – which is my only explanation as to why this film looks so much like Halo.

My feelings looking at Inception are quite different. Here we have a filmmaker at the very top of his game, presenting us with a story that he obviously wants to tell. More importantly, he can tell us it in a way such that we want to hear it. Herein lays the difference. Christopher Nolan has our appetites whetted and he knows it. By forcing himself and his cast into a vow of silence, he is actually trying to make the film itself a new experience – something that Avatar desperately wants to be. By the time Avatar comes out, all its secrets will no doubt have been revealed to be not very spectacular at all, whereas Inception will be an enigma. This is of course only my two cents, but come December 18th, I’ll be surprised if people are queuing up to see anything more than big battle scenes, predictable storylines and hammy acting, all in “glorious” 3D.


1) http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31191
2) http://www.collider.com/entertainment/article.asp/aid/8567/cid/13/tcid/1
3) Ibid.