The Disney Civil War

Four score and seven months (give or take a few) Marvel set fort upon its fandom a Civil War.  By that time I was out of comic collecting & only followed the story at a very distant distance.  I know that Tony Stark wanted to register meta-humans and Captain America did not.  This sounds eerily like the GOP primary race.  Peter Parker also traded his secret identity for some Stark Industries Spidey Armor.
For some time now the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been leading up to this epic showdown between Iron Man & Cap.  We've been given an impetuous Tony Stark and a straight laced, by the book Steve Rogers to be the foes in this battle.  (Sony gave Spidey back and he apparently will be making an appearance.)  All we needed to know is what causes the rift and who's on whose side?
The first CW trailer answers those questions:

 

Bucky.

Seriously, the whole Civil War is over Bucky.  Tony Stark gets so butt hurt over Cap's old BFF showing back up that he becomes the by the book Avenger while Cap throws that book to the wind for Bucky.  Is this the MCU or the High School Musical Universe.  Thanks Disney for ruining what had been a roaring success & turning it into a teen drama.  Come on, Tony Stark pouting because he "Used to be" Caps best friend while holding Rhodey in War Machine's mangled armor.  Disney, please oh please don't screw up Star Wars.  My confidence is wavering.
If you even care anymore, Team Iron is of course War Machine with the Black Widow, the Black Panther (who looks awesome) and probably Spider-Man (red & blue, not black...but how cool would that be?).  Team Cap is Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, the Falcon & Bucky.

The Civl War Begins implies that this will be an ongoing story.  What's next? The Vision borrowing Thor's hammer & scratching it?  Bruce Banner not getting Scott Lang's jokes?  I can't wait.

I give this preview a Hulk Smash which is exactly what I wanted to do after seeing it.

Now back to watching more Star Wars Episode VII commercials.

Fill in the _____________ of the Planet of the Apes

I gotta admit that my first impression of this preview was very negative.  It took me almost half of it to accept the fact that James Franco is not the human lead.  Why did they even bother with this film?  Who cares about computer generated talking apes anyway.  What's next Affleck as the Dark Knight?
I muscled past this massive disappointment and realized that I actually enjoyed the preview.
It opens with a shot of I Am Legend's overgrown New York (except this is San Francisco but you'll think the same thing when you see the preview).  We learn that Caesar is now conversant, has a family and has mastered Dressage (go ahead and click the link so you'll get the joke).  Commissioner Gordon shows up ready for a Gotham style street fight with the League of Assassins.  Caesar also deals with an ape itching for the fight which we are treated to glimpses of as the preview closes.

**Spoiler Alert**
This wasn't in the preview, but at some point the apes knock over the Statue of Liberty in NY and drag it to a beach somewhere.  I don't want anyone freaking out like they did in Spider-Man 2 when Gwen died.

I give this preview a bipedal-foot thumbs up.  All I can say is that it's a good thing that James Franco didn't bring back any flying monkeys from Oz or this movie would've been over faster than the preview.

Thor: The Dark World

Everyone's 3rd favorite Avenger's second movie will be out in November, which means that the
preview is in theaters now.  Get to your seats early when going to a Marvel movie if you want to find out what's in store for the butt of Tony Stark's best jokes.
We find out that Thor will be fighting the Universe's oldest enemy.  Before there were bad guys there was, DARKNESS.
To do this, Thor must once again don his mother's drapes and reunite with Princess Amidala.  How'd that work for Anakin?  Come to think of it he ended up wearing the Emperor's drapes.
The trailer for Thor: The Dark World really is just a reminder that the next Captain America preview will be out soon which means that the one we're really waiting for is just around the corner-ANT-MAN.
***Spoiler Alert***
Thor springs Loki under the threat of death if he double crosses the Norse god of thunder.

***Rating***
One Hammer-after seeing this preview I'll spend the whole movie wondering how Loki double crosses Thor & it'll probably be a very minor plot point.

Not a 'Plain' preview

Engines thunder then White Zombie's More Human Than Human blares and this trailer has the makings of a hit. Animated air planes with eyes filling their windshields reintroduce us to Pixar's world of sentient vehicles.
The preview's protagonist is Dusty, a crop duster who's afraid of heights and apparently races against World War II era planes. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something very familiar about this preview.  We find a vehicle in a small town who goes on race internationally.  There's also the little forklift characters that I've seen somewhere before.  It seems like there should be a bucktoothed airplane, but I didn't see one in the preview.  I just get the sense that I've seen this story before.
Maybe it's just me.

***Rating***
1 Ka-Chow!  You'll want to watch this preview again and again so you'll get the line about how fast you fly right.
  

 
 

Elysium Fields

I get the feeling that I've seen this preview before; the haves verses the have nots, a crisis and a reluctant hero.  A thief having paid his debt to society trying to do right but catches a bad break.  Matt Damon's playing a smart elic.  Matt Damon having his body enhanced and then being sent on a mission.
Lucky for Sony I'm a fan of movie cliché.
Elysium is of course a utopia and the Earth is of course a dystopia.  Good Will Bourne through a series of events is apparently exposed to radiation which, unlike Peter Parker or Bruce Banner, will kill him in five days. So his buddy digs out Mickey Rourke's Iron Man 2 costume, bolts it to Jason Hunting and sends him to Elysium where Jody Foster looking like her Clarice character frets about him.  Some chick has a daughter that apparently is sick & needs to get to Elysium too because our hero has to have a better reason than saving his life to get up there.

***Spoiler Alert***
There are no surprises in this trailer.  Matt Damon and his exo-skeleton make it to
Elysium and stuff blows up.

***Rating***
9 as in District 9 by the same director which was a good movie but this preview was better.

The Smurfs Rise

Just like this blog, the Smurfs are back baybee!
Just like all the kids in America have been waiting for this sequel, you've been waiting for more Preview Reviews.
Just like the last two sentences began...

I had to look the Smurfs 2 preview up on line because I haven't seen it in any theaters.  This may be the first that you're learning about this movie and just now are realizing that your kids are probably going to get a Smurf themed kids meal somewhere and start begging to be taken to this cinematic delight.
A lot of part live action, part computer animated movies are entertaining to us parents too, and if this preview is any indication; Smurfs 2 ain't one of them.
If like me you thought there wasn't enough Gargamel in the first Smurfs tilt, you will be rewarded in the Smurfs 2 preview.  He's running around like General Stryker from the X-Men gave Harry Potters powers to Mr. Bean.
He's created Bizzaro Smurfs who are grey & he spends the whole preview trying to trick Smurfette into telling them the secret to turning blue.

***Spoiler Alert***
Envy or holding one's breath for a long time cause blueness.  Duh.

I give this Preview the Deuces
As in throwing them up when it starts for one last potty break before the feature starts.

Finally, I've been waiting years for this preview. I can still remember the static ridden beep followed by "Houston, we have a problem" that was the greatness of Apollo 13. It took several years, but finally the sequel has arrived.


The preview begins with a bit of subterfuge with the tag line, "Officially Apollo 17 was NASA's final manned mission to the moon." So, I'm thinking Apollo 18 is going to be a spy movie, but no we find out that it's a documentary. Now I'm thinking great, best case scenario Michael Scott and Ricky Gervais are the astronauts, or worse case; Michael Moore's going to be running around Houston harassing rocket scientists about whether or not the moon landings were faked.


Much to my relief an intriguing development occurs. This is lost footage. First person lost footage. Now we're talking. This film is by Dimension Horror. It's not a sequel to Apollo 13, it's a prequel to the Blair Witch project. Everything is there, the "What was that?" noises and motion at the periphery of the shot. There are even footprints in the dust. I expected for the preview to end with an astronaut standing in the corner.


This preview is suspenseful. It poses a lot of questions about the movie, but doesn't answer any of them. There's even a Screamer (the sci-fi movie, not Scream)



I give this preview a full moon.