Bowl Bids

It was all about the action. Action, ACTION, ACTION!!! Yep, action with THREE entertainment exclamation points. After a self-imposed moratorium which saw limited Hollywood participation in the previous broadcasts of America’s annual anthem, Tinsel Town tore up Sunday’s Super Bowl with a record eleven trailers. And as usual, many substituted smoke and mirrors for substance. Some were just teasers. Others unveiled their full blown first firefight salvos in the proposed battle for box office supremacy.

In between the endless ads for beer and beefed up vehicles, we got our initial glimpses at the return of the Decepticons, GI Joe, and Will Ferrell’s take on a classic ’70s kiddie series. Curiously absent? A new Watchmen preview (only five weeks and counting…). Same with the Wolverine X Men Origins film. Nothing about Public Enemies, the return of Harry Potter, Terminator: Salvation, or Alex Proyas’ Knowing. Apparently, unless it was approved by Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok, the marketing teams didn’t bother…with one or two exceptions.

So, without further ado and in alphabetical order, here are reviews of the pictures pimped during last night’s game, beginning with:

Angels and Demons

(Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor – directed by Ron Howard)

If the key to winning back audiences burned by the dull and dopey Da Vinci Code is keeping major plot points and characters a secret, then the ad for this prequel sequel to the 2006 hit has a good shot at being successful. While star Hanks is featured in several scenes of pseudo thrills, it’s the arrival of McGregor in full priest garb that’s the most shocking. The main narrative thread? Who knows? Does Dan Brown still have the juice he commanded two years ago? That’s probably the biggest mystery of all.

Duplicity

(Clive Owen, Julia Roberts – directed by Tony Gilroy)

On the down side, this new film features an aging Julia Roberts trying to capture some post-millennial buzz. On the up side, we get the always watchable Clive Owen. And somewhere in the middle sits Tony Gilroy, freshly minted to the mainstream from Oscar nom glory and ready to follow up Michael Clayton with this calculated corporate spy game. With all the cutesy RomCom contrivances in the trailer, the moments of meaningful drama seem lost. And a mid-March opening is never a good sign.

Fast and Furious

(Paul Walker, Vin Diesel – directed by Justin Lin)

Oh what a difference a few bombs will make – and we’re not talking about the pyrotechnic kind. After the first F&F made megabucks, both Walker and Diesel were destined (PR style) to become the new post-modern action heroes. A few Babylon AD/Running Scareds later, and both leads are back licking their lame box office wounds. With Tokyo Drift‘s Lin still in charge (apparently series originator Rob Cohen couldn’t be bothered) this will be stylish and empty – perfect for the early April lull before the real popcorn season begins.

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

(Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum – directed by Stephen Sommers)

It’s a film based on a cartoon originally based on a toy. Now that sounds promising, especially if you’re a full blown ‘anything ’80s’ geek. And depending on what you think of Stephen “Yes to Any Excess” Sommers, this is either the sleeper blockbuster of 2009 (it doesn’t hit theaters until August) or Van Helsing with toy soldiers instead of baby vampires, werewolves and lots of stuff going “boom”. The trailer did deliver a classic ID4 money shot, though. Who didn’t smile when the Eiffel Tower disintegrated and fell, huh?

Land of the Lost

(Will Ferrell, Danny McBride – directed by Brad Silberling)

Believe it or not, Sid and Marty Kroffts’ Saturday Morning trip back in time was proposed and presented as serious science fiction. Even with the grade-Z effects, the storylines were written by some of the genre’s greats. So the snarky, borderline silly preview for the Farrell update appears prepared to crap all over that concept. In some ways, this looks like a Night in the Prehistoric Theme Park, with CG dino damage taking the place of actual ideas. Yikes.

Monsters vs. Aliens

(Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie – directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon)

Something about the premise seems a bit…off. The outer space angle looks lifted directly from Mars Attacks! But the creature feature element appears all fudged up. Are a 50 foot teenager and a giant gerbil really ‘monsters’? And does the notion of pitting a “ragtag” group of quasi-fiends against technologically advanced enemies really play? Finally, can we trust co-directors Letterman and Conrad? They were, after all, responsible for Shark Tale and Shrek 2 respectively. Well, at least the 3D gimmick seemed sort of interesting.

Race to Witch Mountain

(Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb – directed by Andy Fickman)

The original Disney film is not one of the House of Mouse’s shinier moments. For those of us who experience Uncle Walt’s awkward years (read: the ’70s) first hand, this was sloppy speculative drek at best. Now, the man who made Johnson a massive family friendly hit (he helmed the genial if generic The Game Plan) puts the former WWE star and a pair of precocious tweens in car chase jeopardy, and let’s the stunt work speak for itself. Oddly enough, this is one revamp that shows some promise.

Star Trek 2009

(Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto – directed by J.J. Abrams)

For those counting, this is number eleven in the cinematic series. For those beholden to the notion that ‘evens rule’ and ‘odds suck’, this could cause a problem. Still, Mr. Lost seems to be hitting all the right notes here – reinventing the origin story of the original Trek posse to put their later in life antics into perspective. Messing with mythology is never easy, and Shatner-ites have been whining about their favorite gas bag’s lack of a cameo, but the visuals make this a must-see…at least, until the sneak preview reviews start pouring in.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

(Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox – directed by Michael Bay)

In typical Bay style, this is all slam-bang bombast and very little clarity. We get no perspective on the plot, lots of over-energized eye candy, and one too many hyper hero shots. The new machines look very impressive indeed, and how can you not like a sequence where Master Mutt Jones gets his booty kicked by a giant, pissed off robot? Slam the first film all you want, but it was a joyous junk box of super steroided fun. Hopefully, this will be just as pangloriously goofy.

Up

(Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer – directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson)

Pixar has this problem, especially in the early stages of marketing their movies. If you remember, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and especially WALL-E looked less than promising in their preview form – probably because, unlike the standard Robert Zemeckis school of trailering, every single plot twist isn’t given away in the two minute overview. But so far, the latest from these CGenuises is rather underwhelming. The images, as always, look stunning. We’ll have to wait a while to see if the studio continues batting 1000, or finally finds a project that stumbles, if only a little.

The Year One

(Jack Black, Michael Cera – directed by Harold Ramis)

Black and Cera in a comedy designed by one of the genre’s greats (SCTV‘s Harold Ramis) – how could it fail? Well, the dry as a desert wit displayed in the less than impressive trailer might be an indication of such a suspicion. Sure, there are some clever jokes and a few inspired cameos, but the last time someone tried something like this, we got Caveman (or go back even further for the Dudley Moore flop Wholly Moses). The talent involved gets the initial offering a tentative pass, but things better improve come follow-up time, or all bets are off.