CATWOMAN

I sure hope this falls under Cleo's definition of a trailer review.

THE POLAR EXPRESS

I hate this trailer.

It's not as godforsaken as The Grinch, I give you that. But I'm a big Van Allsburg fan, and I cherished this book as a kid, and--the tone of the movie is just completely, completely off. It ought to be something hushed and magical and almost spooky. You know the main Harry Potter theme? That's what I hear in my head when I imagine it. It should not full of dancing waiters and gospel choirs. In fact, I think this should have been a half-hour TV special at most, because there's not enough story to sustain a feature-length film, and the shit they're making up is just vague action filler.

The worst part is, even if you don't know the book from Adam's housecat (even though it's a Christmas staple--the gift set usually has its own little bell included), the trailer still gives away the end of the movie. What's the point?

CELLULAR

So. Jason Statham kidnaps Kim Basinger, who insists he's got the wrong person. She hotwires a broken phone back together and manages to call... some guy who is currently trying to email a video of some girl's boobs to himself on his cell phone. We are officially in possession of too much technology, people. It is a pretty interesting trailer, though, as this guy (Chris Evans--hmm, tell me more) finds himself commandeering cars, holding up Radio Shack for a phone charger, and dodging death in highway chases for this woman he doesn't even know.

Greg of Yahoo Movies' "Greg's Previews" adds, "Larry Cohen apparently came up with so many great ideas from the same concept that he spun it out into two extremely similar scripts... and both are in development at major studios. Wow. First, you have the one-location Phone Booth, and then after it, there'll be this film... except now the phone is cellular, so the hero can, you know, walk around and stuff. Maybe Cohen will make it a trilogy, and have the next one be about someone who receives an e-mail message."

Vladimir: ...on his PDA.

Cleolinda: Exactly what I was thinking. Call it "Blackberry."

ALEXANDER

Well, if you're going to have Standard Boring Narration, you may as well have Anthony Hopkins do it (I picture Announcer Guy sulking in the corner of the studio). Mostly it's a lot of armor and horses and blond. Kinda reminds me of Troy, just with a lot more horses. And the "Conquer your fear! And I promise you! You will conquer death!" is a lot like Brad Pitt's "Immortality! Take it! It's yours!" line--mostly in how silly it sounds out loud. The really interesting tactic the trailer uses is not to show any of the other big-name stars (Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Hopkins), just Colin Farrell and his weird, weird blond hair. It's okay for a teaser, but... I wouldn't advise you to run out and download this thing toute suite.

VANITY FAIR

Oooo. I'm looking forward to this one. Reese Witherspoon pulls off a good British accent, and I think she'll make a great Becky Sharp. (Ooo, I didn't even know Gabriel Byrne was in this, too!) There's an Indian-themed scene--some sort of performance the female characters put on--that looks a bit out of place for the period, but it's Mira Nair, so I'll allow it.

SEED OF CHUCKY

BZZT! Worthless. Just teaser footage of a sonogram that won't be in the movie. Might be sort of interesting if you were watching TV and it randomly came on. It's not worth a 20 mb download.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (INTERNATIONAL)

Ahhh, a palate cleanser. It's a great trailer, great spooky mood that I wanted in the other two trailers and didn't get, and then... you get to the end and you see the title come up in Japanese and you hear this announcer say, "HAREE POOTUR..." and I just lost it, man. Just put my head back and howled for about five minutes. Too, too funny. However, if you can stop the trailer right when the Dementor sticks his hand in the train carriage, you can pretend that's totally not there and go on your merry way. (There's something at the end, but I'm not sure what it is--a maid knocking on the door?) If I'm not mistaken, there is some new footage, so it's worth it.

THE VILLAGE (FULL TRAILER)

Good trailer. Freaky as all hell, in that Shyamalan floor-creaking door-slamming way. My sister will probably end up sleeping in my bed again if she sees this. I will pay good money bad money okay, I have no money to whoever can pony up a spoiler as to what those things in the woods actually are.

VAN HELSING CLIPS

As has previously been noted, I'm sort of in this one for the long haul (family on the crew), so I'll be the one to take the bullet on most of this stuff (with the exception of Vladimir's post below. He's in recovery as we speak).

The clips are... so very, very silly. For real. Kate Beckinsale's accent is awful, but she commits to the awful, and is therefore consistently awful. I admire this. One of the clips involves her brother, who does not seem to have inherited the Family Accent of Awfulness, being laid out as bait for a werewolf. I still haven't quite gotten over the stupidness of that. Then there's the clip of Anna and Dracula dancing, and he's all like, "One moment of pain and we can be together," like, can you be any more with the obvious there?, and she's all like, "You have no heartbeat!" GET WITH THE PROGRAM, ANNA, IT'S YOUR MORTAL ENEMY. And then in another clip "the Frankenstein monster" shows up and that's dumb. And then Richard Roxburgh shows up as Dracula and he is SO BAD. Seriously. And I love monster movies. I loved The Mummy. I love the people in the movie. I want to like this movie. I am this movie's target audience. If I think it looks dumb...

Be afraid.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

You know, as opposed to Stephen King's Merchant of Venice. Anyway, once we have the obvious out of the way, and once we step over my "Do we not bleed? Hoo-ah!" joke from six months ago, we find... Shylock Pacino sporting an undisguised American accent. Go you, man. In a movie full of Brits, that doesn't sound discordant AT ALL.

On the upside, we do have Joseph Fiennes, that fixture of Elizabethan-era flicks, as Bassanio. Except that he looks like combed-over ass. Oh, and Jeremy Irons as Antonio. The strangest part of this trailer for me is that I remember when Ian McKellen was going to play Antonio, and Cate Blanchett was going to play Portia. In fact, if you go watch the trailer, Portia (the strawberry blonde) bears as close a resemblance to Cate Blanchett as is physically possible under the circumstances. Spooky. The whole thing basically comes off as cut-rate Masterpiece Theater, and you start to understand why the biggest names (after Pacino, who is clearly hellbent on playing this role no matter what) jumped ship.

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR

What the shit is this? It's like a mad scientist tried to fuse a heartwarming midlife crisis/coming of age flick with a haunting psychodrama, and ended up burning down his lab in the process. Seriously, this trailer gave me whiplash. One moment it's all like, THE END OF INNOCENCE and "the Mommy saw some terrible things" (pseudo-subliminal FLASH! of trauma!) and then it's like, "This soundtrack was brought to you by a winsomely angsty songstress escaped from Dawson's Creek."

Oh, and thanks for giving away what looks like a pretty major plot revelation ("I hired you because..."). This is verging on one of those "Thanks, but I've now seen the entire movie" trailers.

(Link from Trailer News.)