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Badass Four-Minute Trailer Finally Makes Terminator Salvation a Must-See

Ryan Hamelin — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:57:38 +0000

Usually by the time the final trailer for a big movie greets the dawn the general consensus is that the potential audience has seen almost the entire film. Badly designed trailers can ruin a movie in 2 minutes just as easily as they can generate unfathomable amounts of hype. The fine line between revealing too much and exciting too little has been sharply tested today as Warnerbros. released their brand new Terminator Salvation trailer which clocks in at a whopping FOUR MINUTES of footage.

This is the kind of extended trailer normally reserved for ComiCon or Showest, something you show the advertisers as a way of getting across the tone and scope that the film is going for, not members of the future audience. In this case, it is the first real idea we’ve had as to what the storyline of this particular film is, and interestingly enough, 4 minutes seems like exactly the right amount of footage to convince you to bump this one to the top of your must-see summer movie list.

Sure a lot of it is stuff you’ve seen before, but the extra context gives it all the weight and scale that a gritty post-apocalyptic sci-fi blockbuster should be looking for. Does the fact that it takes them 4 minutes to make this movie actually look good comment on the quality of the film? I’ll leave that up to you. We grabbed ourselves some pretty compelling screencaps below as well as our inferior quality embed. Head on over to Apple’s trailer page to check this one out in all its HD glory. McG’s monstrosity terminates on May 21st.

Before Heading Off to the Theater, Check out our Spoiler-free Trek Reviews

Ryan Hamelin — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:47:20 +0000

The first showings start tonight, at 7:00pm. I’m sure there are already people lined up as we speak. To say this day has been hotly anticipated by every single Star Trek fan since the awful Nemisis debuted to $18.5 million back in 2002 is an understatement of epic proportions. This weekend we’ll get to see just how well J.J. Abrams’ new vision of Gene Roddenberry’s classic holds up under the scrutiny of die-hard trekkies and casual film-goers everywhere.

The movie is currently sitting at a glowing 95% on RottenTomatoes and looks like it could be the first big hit of the summer (I discount Wolverine mostly because everyone went to see it for Hugh Jackman and shiny claws). Is it better than Kahn? I’ll leave those comparisons up to you. Dan and I got the chance to see the movie last Thursday (don’t kill us, we’re just doing our jobs) and both had a really great time with it. Having seen it once since then, I can also guarantee that it holds up as well if not even better after a second viewing.

The purpose of this article was originally going to be to compare and contrast our viewpoints on the film. I was going into the screening pretty sure I was going to love the movie, and Dan was hell-bent on hating every big-budget minute of it. In the end we’re only a single letter grade apart, but given the already high amount of praise for the film thus far, that’s pretty much the range of reactions in a nutshell anyway. Without further ado, check out our two reviews below:

Star Trek

Review By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: B

OK before I begin this review let me just say that I still think The Next Generation cast had at least one more movie in them. If it hadn’t been for that hack imitating a director, Stuart Baird, Star Trek: Nemesis would have been an amazing success and would have led to one final adventure for Captain Picard and crew. But since that didn’t happen I was excited to see a brilliant movie blending the crews of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager; kind of a best of the best all stars movie. But then that didn’t happen either. Pretty much the last thing I wanted to see was a whole new cast coming in pretending to be our beloved original seven. And of course, that’s what did finally end up happening.

Exhale an enormous sigh of relief fellow purists… it wasn’t that bad; in fact, a lot of it recaptured the charm and magic of the original series which I was thrilled about. However, the movie is far from perfect.

I went in to the film praying that the time travel nature of the story would make up for the fact that nothing looked right. The bridge looked like something out of Lost in Space or Galaxy Quest – nothing like the bridge we all know and love. The Enterprise itself had been drastically redesigned along with the crews’ uniforms and the overall look and feel of life in the 23rd century. Well, it turns out that all of that has happened because a bitter angry Romulan called Nero (Eric Bana) has gone back in time and changed history. The entire timeline from moments before Kirk’s birth to what the film presents as present day is totally different from what we all know as the true history of Star Trek. This was a brilliant move on the part of the creative team behind the film because now, they can do anything they want… change anything they want and it’s acceptable.

For me the plot of the film is almost irrelevant beyond the above points so I’m not going to go into any specifics about it. Suffice it to say when you sit down to watch this film, the plot will drag you in and you’ll be totally on board for the ride. The important things to talk about here are how wonderfully well these young actors stepped into the shoes of these legendary parts.

It was impossible for me to envision anyone else being Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. The four supporting characters Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov were a little easier to imagine in different hands as their characters were never fully explored and realized. But the top three had such chemistry between them it seemed impossible to replicate. It was that whole lighting in a bottle phenomenon. While that statement is true, newcomers Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban came so much closer to it than I ever imagined they could – I was blown away! Karl Urban in particular embodies McCoy in such an honest and true way that I really believed I was watching DeForest Kelley when he was younger playing Dr. McCoy. Zachary Quinto nails several true Spock moments that solidify the character and Chris Pine plays the sexiest Captain the galaxy has ever seen! He definitely wasn’t channeling Shatner but was still 100% Captain James T. Kirk.

The special effects and action sequences are where I have the most problems with this movie. Star Trek space battle scenes are very different from Star Wars space battles; at least they were until this movie. Starfleet ships use phasers, which are solid beams of light firing from a few main locations typically on the saucer section. Rebel and Imperial ships in Star Wars use blasters which are short bursts of energy from cannon type armaments on the ships. Unfortunately J.J. decided that crazy frenetic cannon style blasters looked cooler and so all of the battle sequences have a very distinct Star Wars episodes I, II & III feel which was really disappointing. You never get that build up and tension leading into a battle or during the fighting of it that you get from all other Star Trek movies. Here you are thrown into these massive battles and it takes a while to figure out what the hell is happening. Normally the dialogue in a Trek movie will be, “Lock weapons on this and fire. Then lock different weapons on this and fire. Bring us around to attack from a different angle… and fire!” But here all we get is, “FIRE EVERYTHING!” and then craziness ensues.

I feel like if they could have stayed a bit more true to the franchise in a technical effects sense this movie could have been a total home run, but as it stands it will always be the least Star Trek of any Star Trek film. Some will say that’s a good thing – but those people are stupid.

Don’t get me wrong it was incredible to be sitting in a movie theater watching new Star Trek again for the first time in years! I had a silly grin of pure joy on my face for a lot of it and had a few spontaneous uncontrollable bursts of mini clapping to myself which only happens when I’m so pleased that I just don’t know what to do with myself. So it was a great experience. I just wanna know when these people are gonna wise up and consult me BEFORE a movie is made because with my alterations they’d have near perfect, flawless Star Trek film. I may not be an expert on much, but when it comes to Star Trek I really can’t be beat. And I guess now that J.J. Abrams is involved that’s a cool thing? Right?

And now for the more open-minded, non-diehard, teenager review…

Star Trek

Review By: Ryan Hamelin
RyanHamelin@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: A

The last film that managed to exceed my abnormally high level of fan-boy expectation was The Dark Knight. That should give you some context when I can say, unequivocally, that J.J. Abrams Star Trek left all of my preconceptions in the dust. The movie is a phenomenally solid sci-fi epic that boasts an incredible cast, beautiful visuals, and one of the best scripts of any film to come out this year. I mean it, this film is the kind of event that Trek fans have been waiting for since Star Trek the Motion Picture, and it’s a movie which manages to be entirely respectful to its source material while simultaneously opening its arms to the entirety of the movie going public (Watchmen screenwriters take note).

What works? Just about everything. From the pitch-perfect opening sequence, easily the most emotionally charged opener of any of the films, to the final bars of the classic theme with Leonard Nimoy delivering the “Space, the final frontier” motto, this film maintains a level of quality in every facet of its production that continues to astound me hours after leaving the theater. The sets are wonderful, even the updated bridge took a grand total of three minutes before it became familiar and homely, and the U.S.S. Enterprise has never felt more real. The space battles have been kicked up through the roof, and though they’ve acquired a more visceral Star Wars aesthetic, I think it’s truly a good thing, because they are spectacular on a big screen.

Enough can’t be said about the cast of this film. Everybody nailed every line, every nuance, while managing to never look like they were imitating anybody. Karl Urban, in particular, is quite literally channeling DeForest Kelley the majority of the film and the interaction between him and Chris Pine’s Kirk along with Zachary Quinto’s Spock really shines through from the original series. I spent the majority of the movie grinning from ear to ear as each classic line flew out of the mouths of characters I knew and had grown to love throughout my childhood. The familiarity was so tangible and real that I’m amazed something didn’t happen to disturb the near endless stream of terrific moments by the halfway mark of this film.

What didn’t work? Well, I know Dan’s going to have quite a few more criticisms than I do, but given he went in prepared to hate the film and came out enjoying it, that shows you just how solid a piece of entertainment this project is. On occasion the action seems to lull a little bit, but that’s really only in comparison to the rapid-fire pace of the rest of the film. The writers also get really close to dangerous territory when it comes to one relationship in particular, but they never go too far, and having read interviews with Gene Roddenberry bemoaning the fact that he never had the time to develop this particular relationship in the series, I’m happy they did their best to explore the possibilities there without falling into cliché or gut-wrenchingly bad melodrama. As long as Chris Pine is in the scene to offer a quip that brings the focus back where it belongs, the tangents never seem forced or too disconnected.

Now it’s time to address what I gather is a really big question for all of the non-Trek fans out there. Will you like it without knowing anything about the series? I think the answer is a definite yes. There’s guns, space battles, drama, intrigue, humor, explosions, and heart… all painted on the canvas of one of the most well loved sci-fi universes ever created. It’s also a time-travel story, so it goes back and introduces all of the original crew as well as the major themes of the show and all the different technological gadgets that they have at their disposal. It really is quite accessible, and the lines that will draw appreciation of a deeper sort from fans will still produce the same laughs and smiles from people looking for a good story and who can appreciate characters that have all the weight and candor of real people.

Is it perfect? No. Do they pull it off? Hell yes. They also manage to create a film that both Trekkies and the uninitiated will love for years to come. This film will make Star Trek cool, it’s true, but not through destroying anything that was great about it before, just by opening it up and telling a story that will emotionally affect a greater number of people. This is the movie that will validate all those years of fans saying, “No really, you should check it out, it’s really cool” and replace that with “Yeah, I’m a real fan, not one of you bandwagoners.” I think that alone is worth the price of admission. Hats off to Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman for doing the seemingly impossible and rebooting the greatest sci-fi franchise of all time in spectacular fashion. I figure they’ve got at least two more fantastic movies left in them, and then we’ll see what happens. Will these be the continuing voyages of a new generation of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy? Who knows? All we can say for sure is that as the U.S.S. Enterprise warps off on its next voyage into the unknown, the future of this franchise looks bright indeed.

So, there you have it. Now you know everything you’d ever really want to know prior to seeing the film, and just for fun, here are the newest TV Spots to help you on your way out the door. Drop us a line when you get back from the film and tell us what you think below. Live Long and… well… you know.

TV Spot #12

TV Spot #13

TV Spot #14

Brad Pitt’s Giant Neck Scar in a Basterdly Poster

Ryan Hamelin — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:16:24 +0000

The title pretty much says it all. Here’s Brad Pitt, looking like Brad Pitt, with a kinda gruesome neck scar for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s WWII movie Inglorious Basterds. That’s right, not “BastArds”, “BastErds” but don’t ask me why, you’ll have to ask the man himself. Or maybe you shouldn’t, he might just impale you on something for fun. Anyway, check it out below:

For those still playing catch up on this one, here’s the latest footage too:

Armed and Ready to Split Himself an Arrow, First Photo of Russell Crowe as Robin Hood Ambushes the Internet

Ryan Hamelin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:57:23 +0000

I must admit, I was excited about this project back when it was titled Nottingham. It was being pitched as a darker, grittier take on the classic Robin Hood myth, recasting the Sheriff of Nottingham as the hero and Hood as a villian in one of the more inspired role reversals I’d ever heard of. Then they gave the project to Ridley Scott who has proved a master with such material in the past, and he, in turn, hired Russell Crowe to play Nottingham. It was assumed some equally accomplished actor would portray Hood, and entertaining popcorn hijinks would ensue on an epic canvas the scope of which only Ridley could provide. Then it was announced a little further into development that Crowe would be playing both Nottingham and Hood, the kind of twin brother idea that would really shake up our understanding of this classic story. Now it appeared the film might have some serious potential to move in an exciting untrodden direction, breaking new ground while keeping the fidelity of this incredible fantasy world which Scott would inevitably ground in some cool visual aesthetic known only to him. This was all quite a while ago, and it could’ve been something really fresh and new… up until the announcement that they were retitling it Robin Hood and that Crowe would be playing, you guessed it, Robin Hood. That sort of killed my whole anticipation for the project in one fell swoop. To be fair, they’ve managed to assemble a cast worthy of note, including Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian, William Hurt as William Marshall, and Mark Stron as Sir Godfrey, but that’ll pretty much only mean i’ll see it at some point, even if it does get relegated to the DVD bin. Anyway, here’s your first look at Crowe in the titular tights. Will Ridley and Russell become this decade’s Scorcese and DeNiro? Only time will tell.

This Week in Trek, a Wired Magazine Feature and Yet More TV Spots

Ryan Hamelin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:22:38 +0000

Tired of the Star Trek news articles? Then start making movies I’d be more excited about seeing. This week, it so happens, that the newest edition of Wired Magazine is hitting stands courtesy of special guest editor J.J. Abrams, who, for those living under a rock, is the director of the up and coming Kirk and Spock feature film. Besides letting him drop vague tantalizing hints about the ending of Lost and talk about how great it is to be wealthy and all-powerful, it allowed Wired to publish a pretty sweet article detailing some of the concept work that went into the ice-planet creature from the new movie that is seen ever so briefly in the trailers and TV spots. You can check out some of the pictures below and head over here for the full article.

Think we were out of TV Spots yet? Nope, but it sure is getting kind of old… Paramount’s still like, “Here’s 30 more seconds of our movie and maybe 5 or 6 frames you’ve never seen before.” Just come out already, yeesh.

NEW TV Spot #8

NEW TV Spot #7

Star Trek Heats Up… Gets Itself a Rating, New Pics, and New TV Spots

Ryan Hamelin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:24:49 +0000

Well, I guess you could say the Star Trek marketing team is officially in full swing these days. Fresh off of the release of the film’s final poster, Paramount has been nice enough to send us along some brand new official photos from the film:

In other news, the world premiere of the movie is either tonight or tomorrow night (conflicting reports) at the Syndney Opera House so look for the first of the early reviews to hit the net in the next few days. The MPAA have given the final cut of the movie the assumed PG-13 rating, for reasons explained best by their official statement:

Star Trek has been rated Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence and brief sexual content by the Motion Picture Association of America.

The past few days have also been good on the TV Spot front with a bunch of new Terminator Salvation spots hitting the airwaves (waiting on some interesting news about the film itself before posting an article on them) as well as two new Star Trek spots which we’ve embedded below.

TV Spot #4

TV Spot #5

First Bruno Trailer Arrives, the Floodgates Open

Ryan Hamelin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:47:42 +0000

After months of shady set reports, a giant rumor mill, and nothing in the way of any official content, the marketing team behind Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film, Bruno, have officially begun their full out advertizing assault. Courtesy of Myspace.com, we have the first official (Red-Band) trailer from the flick below. It’s behind an age gate, as per MPAA regulations, but it’s just a few seconds inconvenience before one of the funniest trailer’s I’ve seen all year:

The studio also released the first official still from the film, which you can check out below:

Next Star Trek Movie Fast-Tracked (New Pics Too)

Ryan Hamelin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:30:53 +0000

Well, for those of us who are excited for the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek film, this news is good to hear. Apparently Paramount likes what they’ve seen and they’ve gone ahead and hired back Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci for another go around in the fragmented timeline re-boot of the classic sci-fi saga. They’ve added Damon Lindelof to the writing team, and J.J. Abrams is playing it safe for now, only currently listed as producer. Should the new Trek movie explode, it’ll allow Abrams to ask for more money, while if it fails, it mean’s he can avoid flack by not directing another one.

The story is still at its most basic stages, but the trio hopes to deliver a draft soon in order to have a film in theaters for summer 2011.

“Obviously we discussed ideas, but we are waiting to see how audiences respond next month,” Kurtzman said. “With a franchise rebirth, the first movie has to be about origin. But with a second, you have the opportunity to explore incredibly exciting things. We’ll be ambitious about what we’ll do.”

In other news, a bunch of new stills from the movie have popped up online, including our first look at the meeting between Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy, and we have them below for your viewing pleasure.

Harry Potter and the March of the Character Posters

Ryan Hamelin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:25:38 +0000

Yes the last book in the series came out a while ago. Yes this is no longer the second to last movie, but the 6th of 8 total films. Yes they’ve already started filming Deathly Hallows Part 1. Yes Michael Gambon is still no where near as good as Richard Harris. Yes they added a whole new scene involving fire and the Weasley family home to further destroy childhood memories and eat up more screen time with non-plot related storytelling… and yes, this movie got pushed from November to July because there was an outside chance it would make more money in a summer which was supposed to be emptier due to the writer’s strike.

Despite all of this, the one constant of the Warnerbros marketing campaign since Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban has been successfully convincing everyone on the planet that this next film will live up to Alfonso Cuaron’s pitch-perfect restructuring of Columbus’s ambitious but underwhelming vision. Each time they fail, mostly because of script issues or poor directing choices, and instead of pulling the wide load truck of money up to Cuaron’s back door so we may once again see a great Harry Potter film, they spend it all to convince everyone that the next one will be far better than it will, inevitably, end up.

Case in point, here are a set of brand new badass character posters from the film. Again, they imply that they were created to sell a genuinely good film… only time will tell.

Here is our embed of the official trailer, presented exclusively to fan sites:

And here are a couple more of the newest official pics from the film, in case you’ve really been starving for all things Harry Potter.

Brand New Star Trek Poster – Plus a Trek International Poster Round-up

Ryan Hamelin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:30:16 +0000

Hot off the presses, here’s your first look at the final Star Trek one-sheet, courtesy of Myspace.com.

The thing about poster news is that international posters are almost always better than the marketing here in the States… I guess the studios figure Europeans are more creative and need cooler advertising to get them to see a film. Whatever the reason, here are a few cool international trek posters from the UK, Germany, and Australia. Enjoy:

Just in case you weren’t getting enough fun Star Trek content, here’s our embed of the latest and greatest exclusive tv spot: