Right off the bat: It’s not a damn lion! Well I hope not.
The new film by producer J.J. Abrams (Lost) and director Matt Reeves (something he’s done before) is a strange beast (also features one) in that for once we don’t know a hell of a lot about it. A huge monster attacks New York and we see video camera footage of it doing so. And that’s it. We don’t know anything else apart from that. Well, the monster is a bit clumsy with his kick-ups (see the statue of liberty head scene) but beyond that we’re relatively clueless.
We’re so used to seeing promos for blockbuster movies show pretty much all the coolest bits in a flash cut, hyper-speed, blink-and-you’ll-miss-the-whole-trailer kind of way, that to see a preview that only hints at the destructive epic we’re in for is a real breath of fresh air. Go on take a lung full. Actually don’t – it’s probably tarnished with rubble dust from fallen buildings and smashed bridges.
I recently saw the film I Am Legend. And that too was a film that held back something in its trailer – the creatures. Unfortunately when you finally saw them in all their poorly rendered, done-by-the-work-experience-boy CGI you wished they’d held them back for the whole film. But until we actually saw the film and watched it fall apart as the cheap videogame baddies started bouncing off the walls like a big bunch of pill popping Gollums, at least there was a mystery about it. We didn’t know everything there was to know when we went in.
Compare that with the Transformers preview; where 200 half a second clips are crammed into 2 minutes leaving anyone with a heart condition clutching their chest for dear life and anyone without a heart condition with a heart condition. I’ve never seen the film, but I feel I have, it was just ran at 20 times the normal speed and was called a trailer.
Incidentally, there was a trailer for another film before the full presentation of Transformers. It caught people’s attention because they didn’t know exactly what it was, but it sure looked interesting. The movie didn’t even have a title at that point. We now know it as Cloverfield. And I’m hoping it’ll break records like a hundred foot tall monster breaks heads off statues.
I just hope it turns out to be a good film. And I’ll spit if it turns out to be a lion.
I’ve been looking for a blog over Cloverfield!
Indeed, I am very hyped to see it next weekend on opening day. I’ve been very near to dying as I keep hearing more and more updates on it, ever since I first saw the tremendous preview in July.
But this brought to light a very good point- how a lot of times, movie trailers will put all the action and details into that small two minutes, not leaving much to be imagine by the viewers.
But excellently, Cloverfield and I Am Legend both provided extremely mind-itching concepts, but didn’t reveal the best part of it all, leaving people wanting more.
So, come next Friday, I’ll be right in there, anticipating whatever the hell it is! Can’t wait…
(Myself, I’ve heard several rumors including a surprsingly realistic sketch of the creature….I just hope it’s not that particular thing, because it wasn’t that scary)
It’s cthulu! No, it’s Voltron!
Not a huge fan of a monster movie shot in the Blair Witch style, but Rickey will give this a shot nonethless… Here’s to hoping its good.