Trailer Tracker: Super Bowl Surge!

From all the thirty seconds film clips that peppered the airwaves of Super Bowl XLV from pre-game to Glee time, Player Affinity has collected six of the best and most revealing teasers. We get our respective inaugural peak at one of the many superhero flicks blasting into theatres this year with Captain America: The First Avenger and also Transformers: The Dark of the Moon, the third and supposedly final instalment in the hugely popular robo-smashing franchise. J.J. Abrams’ and Steven Spielberg’s mysterious project Super 8 perpetually continues to reveal itself in fine detail, and finally rounding out the festivities are brand spanking new clips for Cowboys & Aliens, Fast Five and Battle: Los Angeles. Who said the fun stops when the clock runs out? Another touchdown, it’s Trailer Tracker.

New trailers this week:
Captain America: The First Avenger
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Super 8
Cowboys & Aliens
Fast Five
Battle: Los Angeles 

Captain America: The First Avenger

 This film adaptation, though continuously buoyed as a 2011 event film and boasting a middle-to-high profile superhero, has certainly had its fair share of detractors. Casting Chris Evans in the titular role after already gracing the screen as another superhero in two “Fantastic Four” entries, was met with controversy as was the choice of Joe Johnson as director, as was…hell most everything else. Though only a shock and awe teaser, this first official look has stoked my smouldering expectations to a new intensity; chiefly due to a look (albeit a fleeting one) at the amazing Hugo Weaving as Red Skull. If the trailer promises anything regarding the content of the actual film, it is that of a gritty WWII period piece. If this is the case then consider me titillated…in a manly way of course.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Say what you will about the man but Michael Bay knows how to cut an enticing trailer. For what I can describe as only bedrock (more like molten rock) bottom expectations, the initial teaser and now this follow-up entry for the third instalment of the “Transformers” series has impressed me to an extent. The autobots and decepticons have apparently thrown caution to the wind and deemed Earth as their whipping boy; thirty seconds of exploding buildings and screaming metal are all this spot promises. All I can hope is that Bay trims down his normally excessive running time and lets the FX-laden, brain-numbing action do its thing and not bore us to death in the process. 

Super 8

Originally (and uncorrected) heralded as a sequel to Cloverfield, this entry is instead a wholly original effort from director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg. An official plot is still yet to be revealed though an alien invasion scenario of some time has been confirmed since its mysterious initial teaser last year. Super 8’s Super Bowl spot is a high-octane, explosion-riddled experience which has only made me eager to see more (especially with the talent involved). Perhaps some of my expectations lie with my love and admiration for creative marketing (anything to break up the monotony) but even before seeing an iota of bonafied material I was enticed. Set for a straight-up June, blockbuster release, Super 8 is quickly looking like a tentpole event.  

Cowboys & Aliens

To claim that the first full-length trailer for Jon Favreau’s second string of comic book adaptations exceeded my expectations would stand as an egregiously harsh statement not only to the star-studded collection this picture boats but also to my unchecked admiration for genre-blending diversions. Courtesy of Green Bay and Pittsburgh, we get crisp new footage of Daniel Craig leaping onto extraterrestrial aircraft and more bang-bang for our buck. The clip may have had too much of a focus on the stars than on the enticing premise, but if anything my excitement is only growing into the summer months for this root em’ toot em effort.

Fast Five

We all expected it, and now we have a taste of it; Fast Five’s new teaser hints at the inevitable smackdown between two of the biggest current action icons in Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Vin Diesel. Aside from that the first petro-fuelled trailer provided most of what we needed to see in a fifth “Fast and Furious” flick, but you know what, that little extra goes a long way, especially when two muscle-clad behemoths are thundering fists down upon one another. I was trying to think of more to say, but who am I trying to fool?

Battle: Los Angeles

The spots for this (and yes yet another alien invasion movie) have continued to impress, and the newest whiff sends home some more semi-shaky cam, what’s-going-on messages but with the same level of intrigue. Constantly (and please don’t think I coined this) compared to Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day the rambling buzz and combined hate has been palatable. Certainly director Jonathon Liebesman having concocted such flicks as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning does not inspire confidence, but for whatever it’s worth, the trailers do.