GBU: Don't Change the Tail on my Battleship
Posted Monday, August 1, 2011 at 3:13 PM Central
Last updated Monday, August 1, 2011 at 3:23 PM Central
by John Couture
It's been a veritable bonanza of movie trailers lately. I suppose that has a lot to do with the Summer winding down and the studios giving it one last gasp to give movie audiences something to remember when they make their movie choices this Winter.
Or it could just be something in the water.
Whatever the case, there were so many trailers released in the last few days, that I just had to break out the old "Good, Bad and Ugly" feature one more time. Sometimes, it's hard to categorize the trailers, but this week's offerings fell into their respective spots pretty nicely actually.
Interestingly, we've got a last ditch Summer release, an awards-season action flick and what is assuredly going to be the biggest bomb of the 2012 Summer season (no pun intended).
THE GOOD
I say "good" with a bit of hesitancy on this one. Because, let's face it, no matter how many times you watch this impressive trailer from George Lucas for his upcoming movie Red Tails, you're going to end up quoting Han Solo, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
As good as Lucas is with the action and CGI (and there are few that are better), his dialog is among the worst in the business. Thankfully, he has solicited help from a co-writer on this project and can you really go wrong when you're putting words in Terrence Howard or Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s mouths?
Well, I used to think the same about Samuel L. Jackson too before he got Lucasfied. Suffice to say, I'm cautiously very optimistic about this passion project from ole George. Although, the trailer is just screaming for someone to digitally insert Jar Jar Binks into it. Speaking of Binks, I'm really surprised that Ahmed Best didn't get a role in this movie.
I mean it's the very least Lucas could have done to make up for the whole Jar Jar incident.
THE BAD
Again, the term "bad" is really "bad-ass" as it seems that The Change-up can do no wrong. I'm not really one who likes to see all of the best jokes from the movie in the trailer, but I think this second red-band trailer will convince any fence sitters to go.
What I enjoy the most in this trailer is the continuation of the movie going places where you least expect it. For instance, the sexy woman who comes into Ryan Reynolds' apartment wearing only a trench coat goes in a direction that I would have never guessed in a million years.
This trailer also confirms that Leslie Mann doesn't need her husband to be involved in a project to get her comedy chops going. I think it's safe to say that this one might be The Hangover of 2011.
THE UGLY
Man, sometimes the jokes just write themselves and this trailer is no different. When Universal first announced a partnership with Hasbro to bring some of their board game properties to the big screen, I scratched my head.
At least the one property that made even the most remote amount of sense was Battleship. I could totally see a cat-and-mouse, Hunt for Red October sort of film actually being something that I'd pay to watch.
And when they cast Liam Neeson, I really saw this sort of movie coming to fruition. Sure, it would've only borrowed the name of the game in spirit, but the idea of a massive, blind naval fleet on naval fleet action flick sort of appealed to me.
And then, I watched this trailer.
This trailer is quite possibly the worst trailer I've seen all year and it's in the running for Worst Trailer Ever. The only thing that even comes close to its namesake is that they are on a boat (which actually might not even be a battleship).
I was even willing to overlook the oozing cheesiness of the love story setup between Taylor Kitsch and Brooklyn Decker, because I knew you couldn't have a whole two hour naval battle. But when the trailer hits its climax, I literally screamed at my computer.
Either director Peter Berg has harbored this desire to be Michael Bay or he had a warped childhood playing with his Transformers toys alongside his Battleship game.
Maybe he had the super-duper, extra secret version of Battleship, but I don't recall aliens or shape-shifting robots in my childhood game. I'm pretty sure I would've remembered shouting out "You sunk my inter-planetary destroyer."
Speaking of iconic lines, that's another failure of this trailer. I mean, you know that at some point in the movie Liam Neeson will utter those magical words, "You sunk my Battleship," so why not at least put them in the trailer?
At least then I might be able to forgive the aliens. OK, probably not, but I would laugh at the very least and that's much better than me getting on here and proclaiming Battleship as the sure-fire bomb of 2012.