Trailer Hitch
By Eric Hughes
December 30, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Inception – Opens July 16, 2010
The first time we heard from Inception, Christopher Nolan's follow up to the $1 billion Dark Knight, it was nearing the end of summer – late August in fact – and all we really got was the very definition of a teaser trailer. We knew it was Christopher Nolan. We knew the project was called Inception. We knew the graphics people had some fun in making the actual title look like it was a single piece of a gigantic, seemingly never ending maze. There was also an obnoxious horn that repeatedly played the same low hum over and over.
Jump ahead a couple of months and we're treated to a second Inception teaser. Well, extended tease (or shortened trailer, depending on your outlook). Because I don't have the patience to sit and wait for the full thing to make its way out into the Interwebs, I've decided to just go ahead and critique what was released only a couple days ago.
All that's really known – or, I guess, all that I've really gathered – is Leonardo DiCaprio plays an executive who can dive into people's dreams through a portable injection machine. Ellen Page, Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt play his youngish associates. The extended tease doesn't expound on the idea too much, though it does shed light on DiCaprio's motivations, in that he's focused on snatching another person's grand idea and plans to use his secret machine to get it.
Because Nolan last worked on The Dark Knight before he did Inception, you'd have to be a totally strange bird (or, well, not a fan of TDK) to not get excited about Nolan's next summer project. Inception is populated with a stellar cast (including Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy), looks dark and should turn out to be a pretty good holdover until the next Batman comes out.
Grade: B
Cop Out – Opens February 26, 2010
Your overall enjoyment in the trailer to Cop Out will likely depend heavily on one thing: Tracy Morgan, and whether or not you like him. Because like Will Ferrell, Tracy in a leading role will require plenty of your attention. If you're the type of person who doesn't dig the humor in 30 Rock, you'll be prone to dismiss this movie as comedy garbage and figure it another lame attempt by Tracy to garner laughs by playing an obnoxious, seemingly unaware human. If, however, you can appreciate his brash brand of humor, I'll assume Cop Out is right in your wheelhouse.
In the movie, Tracy plays a veteran cop – "Hello, the president is black now. We make decisions!" – alongside Bruce Willis, who we've seen before on the same side of the law in more serious projects like the Die Hard series. This time, Bruce and his partner are on the hunt for a stolen, vintage baseball card. Mind numbing stuff, I know!
Given that I always enjoy Tracy and mostly feel the same about Bruce (especially when he does comedy), Warner Bros. didn't really have to do a whole lot to get me interested. The duo appear to have good chemistry between them, and its secondary cast, including folks we haven't seen in awhile like Seann William Scott and Kevin Pollack, will be good for a round of laughs.
Grade: B-
Knight and Day – Opens July 2, 2010
Formerly titled Wichita, Knight and Day stars Tom Cruise as a secret agent who befriends a woman (Cameron Diaz) on an airplane before deciding to kill everyone on board – save for his new blonde friend. Back on the ground, Cruise pulls her into some sort of dangerous cat and mouse game that doesn't make itself explicitly clear in the trailer. Frankly, none of the actual story is reported to us here. Instead, we're force fed a manic Tom Cruise killing lots and lots of people. If summer coed action comedies are your bag (along the lines of something like Mr. & Mrs. Smith), then Knight and Day is probably your bag.
We haven't seen Tom Cruise in an action film since his Collateral/War of the Worlds/Mission Impossible III years of 2004-06, and you have to go back even further to reach the last time he and Cameron Diaz collaborated on a movie set (Vanilla Sky). But, even though Knight and Day's casting choices are refreshing, I can't say the same about what we're actually getting here. It looks fun, but we've seen projects that were even more so. It's got action, but again, by no means are its sequences extraordinary. An average C grade feels appropriate.
Grade: C
Furry Vengeance – Opens April 2, 2010
Which do you want first: The bad news or the really bad news? Proving that Hollywood will green light just about anything – by this point, I'd be more apt to see another mall cop comedy – Furry Vengeance (heck of a title!) stars Brendan Fraser as a young real estate developer who faces off against certain forces of nature (in the form of cutesy little animals, like raccoons) when his new housing development plan pushes a little too far into parts of the wilderness that the animals like to call home.
Honestly, you watch the two-minute preview and swear it's an early April Fool's Day prank. No, Furry Vengeance is in fact a very real movie project from Summit Entertainment. Good to see the studio putting its Twilight money to good use.
Grade: F