Superbowl Movie-Spot Round-Up

Even though the hype around Superbowl commercials is a little bit overblown (especially here up North, since the bulk of them never air on the Canadian feed - we have to watch the same Hyundai vs. a Sasquatch ad 30 times), I always try to check out the new 30-60 second movie spots for this years most anticipated (or not) films.  I’ve rounded up as many of these spots that I can and I will give my ten cents worth on each:

The Avengers

Even though this spot is only just over a minute long, it's proof positive as far as I'm concerned that The Avengers will be, well, totally awesome. Love the bit between Tony Stark and Loki at the end:

 

The Hunger Games

This spot doesn’t show much we haven’t seen before (other than a blue-haired Stanley Tucci), though it does help to give a final overview of the film before it opens next month, and will clue noobs in, if the enormous organic hype-machine that is the book series' legion of hyperventilating teen fans hasn't done so already:

 

John Carter

OK, here's the deal: John Carter (of Mars) appeared as a character in the Barsoom novels (1912-64), written by Edgar Rice Burroughs at the same time he was writing Tarzan novels, and serious sci-fi folks have been waiting for this film for like, ever. I’m more or less settled on the notion that it's gonna be, basically, Avatar-on-Mars (at the very least, that’s what it looks like). Is anyone else bothered by the fact that the score essentially plagiarizes Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir?”  Either way, it looks decent, though it definitely might suffer from the Star Wars Prequels Illness of being a very violent movie that's somehow also intended for children:

Battleship

"FROM HASBRO THE COMPANY THAT BROUGHT YOU TRANSFORMERS"... that kind of says it all, no? This film just boggles my mind. It looks like they took the classic nautical board game, threw it in a blender with Transformers, added a dash of the Xbox Halo and this is weird, utterly serious result. The saddest thing about this whole thing? Our future kids will think that the Battleship boardgame always had MechaTronic Battle Droidz in it. 

 

G.I. JOE: Retaliation

Other than the Jay-Z quoting, this film looks like it could be an improvement on the first. I really dug the quick peek at a very classic-looking Cobra Commander.

 

The Dictator

There’s nothing really here that hasn’t already been seen in the full trailer, though I did like the humourous little Superbowl reference at the start: “Hey America! I just bought NBC! I know the final score! Enjoy the game!”

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax

Hollywood's latest crack at the problem of how to film Dr. Seuss books is the 3D animated The Lorax. They've tried the rubber-faced-goofus-in-makeup route a couple times (Mike Myers as The Cat in the Hat, Jim Carrey as the Grinch), but the most successful attempt so far was likely the similarly animated Horton Hears a Who!, so let's hope the animators can capture the whimsical elasticity of everybody's favourite non-Roald Dahlian childhood author's work. 

 

Act of Valor

With this film, which I haven’t really heard of, opening at the end of the month, I will call this spot a last-ditch effort to get people interested in the film. Hasn’t really worked - they've been selling it all along as featuring actual special forces and Navy SEAL people, which isn't as big a selling point as one'd think, because I like everyone else is probably assuming those guys can't act. 

Find more of Sean Kelly's work on his excellent blog right here, and follow him on twitter by typing in @SKonMovies! More of his stuff for thesubstream is right over yonder.