We get a bunch of new content and trailers to drool over during San Diego Comic-Con. And here are some of them! We've picked out some of the geekier ones to comment on.
First - Justice League.
Important thing to note, this isn't a trailer. It's not footage taken from a movie, it's footage that was created just for the convention possibly in an attempt to salvage interest the franchise after Batman v Superman landed with a wet splut. It's not a trailer, it's a marketing showreel filling in the things they forgot to include in the last movie such as some of the promised characters and a sense of humour. It still has the lack of colour, energy and coherence, but at least they tried.
They must have really rushed this into production because they forgot to give it a basic continuity check. Cyborg comments that he didn't think Batman existed in spite of the previous film in the series establishing that Batman is a well known, publicly accepted reality who was just now involved in a massive, explosive and very public battle in the middle of a massive city (cities?). We also have Batman, World's Greatest Detective, unable to identify Aquaman, a person he has seen very clear video footage of. This is just dumb, people.
It doesn't do much to excite us for the continuation of this franchise. They've made a lot of mistakes so far and this looks like more of the same. The most frustrating, most easily fixed problem is that the TV Barry Allen is much better than this dude! Film Flash looked annoying. Just use Grant Gustin, you numbskulls.
Faring a bit better is Wonder Woman.
Unfortunately it's still using the bleak and a miserable colour scheme they introduced with Man of Steel, and that puts me off. Not everything has to be 'gritty', and I thought the response to BvS might've persuaded them to start moving away from that particular look. That said the WWI setting should mix things up a bit - chucking a superhero into that nightmare will be worth a look. The secretary/slave routine at the end sounds like a forced attempt to be pro-woman, as though making a Wonder Woman movie might've confused people. Gal Gadot still looks the business and the action was decent. Good to hear the theme music continuing from BvS.
Now for Suicide Squad.
I'm pretty keen to see this one. It's obviously hit a few bumps with the reshoots to fit the funnier tone implied by the trailers but it's a good line up of characters with some decent talent behind them. The marketing suggests something a might more fun that what we've seen from DC so far - not that it's hard - and if it's as good as the marketing thinks it is then we'll in for a jolly rumpus. Also, Harley Quinn is my favourite comic book villain and we finally get to see he in a film! Margot Robbie is a great choice for the role!
Also...Slipknot is just a Red Shirt, right?
Finally from DC, we have Lego Batman...
It's a worry when the best DC trailer is the one made out of Lego. Will Arnett's Batman was a high point in The Lego Movie and continuing with this character is just awesome. Michael Cera's dorky Robin looks to be a great foil for the dickhead Batman they've come up with. Can't wait to see this and the subsequent Lego sets.
Time to cross the aisle for some Marvel goodness. Doctor Strange first.
The first trailer for this odd addition to the MCU didn't give us much. More questions than answers. This is not the case in the second trailer. We get a really good sense of how the magic is going to be portrayed and it looks very close to the comic approach. It's not shying away from the surreal either, with some pretty imaginative visuals that will open up a whole new aspect to the world's biggest movie franchise.
They also set up the future of the street level side of the franchise with trailers for , and a tease for .
There's not a lot on show here. Luke Cage looks to follow very much in the vein of Daredevil with a more ghetto angle, and that's just fine. Mike Colter is great casting, he really does look like Luke Cage has walked straight out of the comics. Iron Fist doesn't give us anything more than a quick glimpse of Finn Jones looking beardy. The Defenders is just the title and the concept, but it's good to have confirmation that it's happening. As it stands the Netflix take on Marvel remains the most interesting thing going on right now.
Let's get into the less superheroy geeky stuff with Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them.
Whilst anything featuring the 'Potterverse' is going to sell like crazy, I'm not sure a cinematic revisit to this universe is needed. Building a spin-off franchise with no-one from the original stories is going to be a risky proposition, and how well it does is going to be dependant on how interesting and engaging the new characters are. Aside from that all we really saw in this trailer was a bunch of CGI, which doesn't really excite us any more.
A modern day reboot of King Kong with an unusually shy trailer. Is this something the movie industry has to do every couple of years just to get it out of their system? It looked like a fair wee adventure flick, but it is billed as being from the guys who made a Godzilla movie but forgot to put Godzilla in it. We'll wait and see.
Star Trek: Discovery was very nice, I'm sure, but it's not available in this region and I can't be arsed looking for a workaround. This confounds me, do they not want us to see their marketing?
Finally we have Blair Witch and...wait, really?
This was unexpected. I guess they made a new Blair Witch movie. The trailer is packed with the familiar imagery of the first film but doesn't seem to be stretching itself beyond modern horror tropes. Looks like a cool little horror film but I doubt it's going to change the world.
