This week on Trailer Talk: We look at everyone’s favourite friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, a movie that sounds like a Western but isn’t, and Jason Bourne without Jason Bourne.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
I was one of the few people who seemed to like the Amazing Spider-Man teaser. It didn’t offer a lot of information regarding the movies tone but it did show that the general look was more Nolan than Raimi, and that the film would deal with the disappearance of Peter Parker’s parents, something the previous trilogy never touched on.
The first full trailer continues to establish these ideas, as well as giving us a lot more time with Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and Dr. Connors (Rhys Ifans) and I am happy with everything I am seeing. One element I am overjoyed to see introduced in this film is Spider-Man’s sense of humour.
Spider-Man is, at heart, a wise-ass. He gets to say all the things Peter Parker never had the nerve to say, he’s the prototypical Keyboard Warrior, hiding behind anonymity and loving it. Garfield gets the sarcastic tone right and the dialogue seems appropriately snarky and glib.
Emma Stone is immensely crush worthy at the best of times, so she is the perfect choice to play Gwen Stacy one of the classic first loves of comic books.
The action looks solid, as a life-long Spider-Fan it’s nice to see the web-shooters back (I sincerely hope he runs out of web fluid at least once during the movie, it’s not Spider-Man without a web-shooter malfunction at a critical moment) and the predominantly night-time photography manages to remain visually striking and setting itself apart from Raimi’s more colourful, primarily daylight-set action.
The Amazing Spider-Man has a lot of doubters, it has been just five years since Spider-Man 3, which is three years shorter than Batman took to reboot, making people wonder if it’s perhaps too soon to relaunch the franchise. Of course The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo only took two years to get the remake treatment and that has broken the $200m barrier at the worldwide box office, so distance doesn’t necessarily make the hard grow fonder.
I have been a Spider-Man fan since before I could even read, so I am eternally hopeful that this movie delivers.
WILD BILL
Wild Bill is the directorial debut of Brit-film mainstay Dexter Fletcher, which screened to much acclaim at London Film Festival last year (Check out Ian’s 5 star review), and it’s easy to see why.
First of all, Fletcher has assembled a fantastic little cast of familiar British actors, including Charlie Creed-Miles, Will Poulter, Leo Gregory, Neil Maskell and Andy Serkis. Secondly, the story of an ex-con trying to do right by his kids is a nice change of pace from the usual insincere posturing of the post-Lock, Stock British gangster genre.
Speaking of which, the trailer seems to trade heavily in Guy Ritchie, using Snatch-esque freeze-frame character cards and the same soundtrack as Rocknrolla. This is not a slam against the trailer, it’s completely understandable. Ian’s review indicates that it’s a lot more than your usual Guy Ritchie “Mockney” crime flick, but they obviously need to sell the film to audiences and using a proven strategy is the best way to get attention.
Wild Bill will be released in UK cinemas on March 30th.
THE BOURNE LEGACY
A Jason Bourne movie without Matt Damon, or even Jason Bourne, is a very tough proposition to accept. This trailer, however, makes a very good argument in its favour.
The open is a little Saul Bass-y, stylised and dripping in atmosphere. It ominously sets up the shadow conspiracies that typified the original Bourne trilogy in a slow, considered manner.
Then Jeremy Renner starts to kick people’s heads in. It may be Bourne in name only but the name is there and that means people expect relentless close quarters combat. The trailer delivers on this front with aplomb.
My only complaint is the trailers insistence that it mention how different Jeremy Renner’s character is from Jason Bourne. I understand that the point of the movie is that the success of Jason Bourne as a product of the Treadstone Program inspired other programs, creating this new and improved super-soldier. That’s the Bourne “Legacy” but they keep mentioning that he’s “like Bourne only better”. I hope the name drops only feel excessive because it’s cut into such a tight time frame, otherwise that could start to come off as a little Mary Sue-ish.
This is Bourne, a series where the character depth and moral ambiguity were so essential to the trilogies success that it bled over into other spy franchises and changed the James Bond game completely, so I hope there’s a strong character arc driving the action and not the other way around.
I’m feeling generous today so I’m offering a bonus trailer for you, the much hyped Super Bowl spot for…
THE AVENGERS
