Transformers: Age Of Extinction

The Half Dozen Special: Super Bowl Trailers 2014

Posted on February 3, 2014

On a day somewhat overshadowed by the tragic and untimely death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, once again two American teams played off for the biggest title in American football. Nothing since I slagged off American football last year, or the year before, or the year before that, has changed my opinion on the game: it’s supposed to be sixty minutes of men in excessive padding running at each other and gradually advancing a prolate spheroid made of pigskin one direction or the other over a distance of 110 yards that last night took three hours and twenty two minutes from kick-off to final whistle. More challenging to your sitting muscles than even Blue Is The Warmest Color or The Wolf Of Wall Street, American football is practically the Gone With The Wind of sporting endurance.

What the two hours and twenty-two minutes of not-football do provide is a succession of overpriced and overhyped adverts, including a batch of trailers. There’s a drive in the US to restrict movie trailers to no more than two minutes (typically they run to around two and a half for a full trailer at present), but thanks to the price of advertising they clock in at no more than a minute or so for the Super Bowl, and consequently they have to be rammed to the gills with the most important moments. So let’s see what we’ve learned from this year’s crop.

Transformers: Age Of Extinction

What we learned:

– it’s got giant fighty robots in it again, including my childhood favourite Optimus Prime. I have said previously I’d followed him to Dark Of The Moon and he was now on his own, but we’ll see if my resolve weakens between now and the summer.

– the robots can now turn their heads into giant guns. Hoo-ya!

– You can replace Shia LeBoeuf and Rosie Huntingthingy-Whatsit with Mark Wahlberg and New Generic Blonde, and nobody will really care.

– it’s got robots that look vaguely like dinosaurs, which will be much cooler than robots that look exactly like cars.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

– Apparently the movie will be dialogue free, 60% of it will be in slow motion while another 20% will consist of people turning round while the camera pans in the opposite direction.

– There will be more than one implausible giant flying aircraft carrier at the start of this movie, but there may not be by the end.

– Whoever the Winter Soldier is – oh wait, it’s quite clearly Bucky, are they trying to make this a mystery or not? – he can punch so hard that it makes Steve Rogers wince through his invincible shield.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

– Another silent movie. Since we clearly see people trying to talk, presumably this one will have intertitles.

– Random slo-mo shots of not-electricity are apparently more interesting than much of the film.

– This doesn’t look amazing.

Muppets Most Wanted

– Eighties Robot is back. Yay!

– Five seconds of Ricky Gervais is already testing my endurance.

– They won’t be skimping on the big musical numbers. I look forward to another three months of cheerful earworms.

Pompeii

– It’s basically Gladiator crossed with Dante’s Peak, with less Pierce Brosnan.

– Poor Kit Harrington is going to be typecast in either swords and sandals epics or fantasy (or both) for much of his career.

– It makes no mention of the fact it’s a Paul W.S. Anderson film, just in case you bottle it before the film comes out.

Monuments Men

– It’s got George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Cate Blanchett in, but you need to be told who these people are as they may not be that famous.

– You don’t need to be told who Jean Dujardin is because he’s not that famous. (See also The Wolf Of Wall Street where he’s in it at least as much as named actor Matthew McConaughey.)

– You also need to be told by Matt Damon what the title of the movie is. At least he gets straight to it.

Need For Speed

– It really wants to be a bit like Drive. I will not be that surprised if Aaron Paul turns out to have a giant tarantula on the back of that jacket.

– It’s not a silent movie! There’s at least one line of dialogue.

– Car. Car. Car. Car. Car. Car. Car. Car. Car. Punch. Car. Car. Dialogue. Wrap. Next!

Noah

– Although it’s the untold story – apparently all of the bits that the writer of Genesis didn’t think were important enough – it still has a boat and a flood, so it’s at least in the right area.

– Most of the animals are turning up are more worried about the flood than eating each other, so this is unlikely to get into any of the carnivore / herbivore segregation issues that probably beset the real Noah.

– Apparently Noah has a fiery stick and it’s going to rain fire, so the Bible probably left all of the good bits out.

Draft Day