The Half Dozen Special: 6 Most Interesting Looking Trailers At Super Bowl 2012
Last night was the annual yawn-fest that is the Super Bowl. I explained last year that I’m not a huge fan of American Football, but apparently last night’s game was pretty exciting, if you find an hour of men running about in shoulder pads spread over about three and a half hours and punctuated by almost incessant advertising and a Madonna gig exciting. While the football itself was a great watch for those who like that kind of thing, the trailers this year have been something of a disappointment. Consider last year, when my picks included Super 8, Captain America, Cowboys & Aliens, Pirates 4, Transformers 3 and Rango. Even if some of those films turned out to be shockers, the trailers were all for big budget films looking for blockbuster audiences, which is more than can be said for this year.
Missing, presumed uninteresting this year were the likes of Wrath Of The Titans, Men In Black III, Prometheus, Rock Of Ages, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises. In fact, so poor was this year’s crop of adverts that the six I’ve picked from this year didn’t even all air during the breaks in the “football.” The Hunger Games, for example, is described as a Super Bowl ad but as far as I can tell, it didn’t even air on TV during the big event. So desperate were the studios to hype up what was left that we even got trailers for some of the trailers; if you actually got excited by the trailer for the trailer for the Avengers, you may need to seek professional help. (And I don’t mean an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Anyway, here’s the best of a pretty mediocre bunch this year.
G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation
You’ve got 30 seconds to promote your sequel. So lots of action sequences, moody ninjas, fighting on a cliff and The Rock quoting Jay-Z. Throw in the Jay-Z song being referred to and some gratuitous Bruce Willis, and we’re about done. Next!
Battleship
If anyone actually knows what this is trying to be (and don’t say Transformers 4, even those movies looked coherent compared to this), then answers on a postcard please. If it wasn’t for Liam Neeson, this wouldn’t even get a look in. Next!
Act Of Valor
So this apparently features the guy who played Navi Araz in season 4 of 24 and some actual armed forces types. There are apparently eight real life Navy SEALs in the film, but none of them will actually be mentioned in the end credits. Is it real? Is it fake? Does anyone actually care? Next!
John Carter
Even though Andrew (Wall•E, Finding Nemo) Stanton is directing, my criminally low expectations for this have only been slightly elevated by this trailer. I don’t care if the source material came first, it still looks like Attack Of The Clones meets new Conan. That cannot possibly be a good thing. NEXT!
The Hunger Games
This is the next in the series of Harry Potter / Twilight book franchises to hit the screen, but this is actually looking pretty decent. Anything with Stanley Tucci in can’t be all bad. Next!
The Avengers
“I have an army.” “We have a Hulk.” “Well he still looks fake – and this is the third one!” The rest looks pretty cool, though. But you’d better do better next year, America.
The Movie Evangelist 