Super Bowl Trailer Round-Up

Edited by Robert Beach

Super Bowl Sunday has come and gone; Peyton Manning is finally banished from the world of pro-sports, and we’ve been left with a ton of movie spots for this year’s summer blockbusters.  However, given most of these spots are about 30 seconds each, there’s really no way to dig deep into the individual spots. They’re just a little too brief to devote a whole article too. Instead, I’m doing a big round up of most of the major ones. With that said, let’s dive in. 

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE

So far, I seem to be the odd man out in how unenthused I am for X-Men: Apocalypse. I already gave my full reasoning for this one the premiere trailer dropped, but it basically boils down to Bryan Singer regarding the X-Men source material as something to be ashamed of rather than embraced. That’s still present in this trailer, though it’s downplayed a lot thanks to that awesome reveal spot from Psylock. Psylock is, in a lot of ways, the perfect exemplifier of the X-Men film franchise as a whole, a character with exactly 0 real personality or identity but a unique visual style that just looks amazing in live action.  

The opening action beat of Days of Future Past showed Singer at least knows how to direct the kind of multi-power smack downs that have always made up for the X-Men’s lack of personality in the comics, so here’s hoping that translates over to the film. As for the rest of the spot, I’m still not sure what Apocalypse’s powers are here other than the same vagueness that informed the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy. Still, the scope of this looks fun, and I’m warming to Oscar Isaac in the villain role. 

X-Men: Apocalypse is slated for release on May 18

TMNT 2: OUT OF THE SHADOWS

This was a step backward.  I actually thought the premiere trailer was kind of interesting and not without its charm, but this new one just looks…bad, really quite bad. The big difference is in the tone and especially in the scenes being shown off. The previous trailer was all about showing off the cool scope of the film and how they were bringing in SO much of the Turtles’ mythos. It even managed to avoid slipping into Amazing Spider-Man 2 territory, which pulled that same maneuver only filtering the Spidey mythos stuff through the butt-ugly aesthetics of the new series. All the stuff here like Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, felt fun and natural to the show and comics.  

This trailer is playing up the comedy aspects of the film. And boy, does that not work. The whole thing plays more obnoxious than funny, like the trailer is constantly elbowing us in the ribs over how jokey it is. We also get to our first look at Krang, who looks about as butt ugly and poorly designed as mecha-Shredder from the previous film, or any given bad guy from Amazing Spider-Man for that matter. It’s cool Krang finally makes it to the films. Even though his role seems to just be “final boss,” I get the sense a lot of Turtles fans will end up disappointed by the final product. 

TMNT: Out of the Shadows is slated for release on June 3

JASON BOURNE

The Bourne Franchise is stupid. Maybe that’s an aggressive way to intro this clip. It’s also an honest one because you need to know where I’m coming from with Bourne to get why I’m so down on this 30-second reveal trailer.  As far as I’m concerned, the Bourne films are slick, empty, dumb action movies, enjoyable mainly for the stylish quality of Paul Greengrass’ filmmaking. What they aren’t is something smart, something meaningful, or something important.  

Their biggest place in the pop pantheon is as a rallying point for joyless grown ups who want to tout how their taste in action films is so much more “adult” and “sophisticated” because they prefer Bourne to Rambo or Die Hard.  As such, it’s pretty annoying that the 5^th entry in an underwhelming series made of embarrassing 2000s nostalgia is billing itself as some “return of a classic” when it isn’t even putting in the tiniest effort to update itself. 

Jason Bourne is slated for release on July 29

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE

This trailer looks awesome with one caveat. I really like the scope of destruction and the idea that the aliens swapped out “giant lasers” for just dropping our own cities on themselves. That’s pretty cool.  What’s more, the big dogfight scenes between military jets and flying saucers in space look just fantastic, the perfect logical extension of what the original Independence Day featured. And again, there is a sense of optimism in the darkness of this new film mainly propped up through the fantasy of having a world worth dying for. All of that is here and is great, and I’m all aboard the Independence Day 2 express save for one weird element: the Americanism.

Despite the name and setting Independence Day is explicitly a movie about transcending national boarders and landmarks to create a unified world against a threat so massive it couldn’t be overcome by any one nation. That same idea seemed to stick around in the first trailer with the military aspects showing visible UN insignia, indicating a more unified world post-invasion.  However, this trailer features the American flag and American anthem in a major stadium setting. This might be a set-up for the symbols of America being repurposed into the trappings of global unity, fulfilling the first films promise that the fourth of July would no longer just be an America holiday. Regardless, it’s still a little eyebrow raising (not in a massive way).

Independence Day: Resurgence is slated for release on June 24

JUNGLE BOOK

Damn, this is a good trailer.  I’ve been pulling for this flick to be the fantasy breakout film of 2016 since the premiere trailer, and this Super Bowl spot just gives me more faith in it. The visuals are still spectacular, displaying a scope and vision of the jungle unrivaled in film. However, now that we’re finally getting to hear the animals speak, it’s clear the voice cast is pretty spectacular too.  It’s kind of funny to me that despite the millions of dollars worth of CGI that went into this, it still looks like they just dubbed real animal actors but maybe that was the point.  

Ben Kingsley and Bill Murray seem rock solid and slip into voice-acting mode wonderfully. Scarlet Johansson has already shown off her considerable skill as Kaa, but it’s Christopher Walken who absolutely wows as King Louie in this trailer. Ironically, it’s probably Idris Elba who comes off the most “eh?” in the trailer, which isn’t that surprising.  I love Elba when he’s used right, though he doesn’t fit every mold and can often end up miscast like his spot on The Office or his role in Prometheus. 

Speaking of King Louie, let’s all just get it out of the way now that the original Jungle Book novel is incredibly racist and a good chunk of that made it into the animated Disney film. I’m hoping Favreau and the Disney of 2016 will have rightly excised those elements. Although, let’s not pretend they didn’t happen.  Favreau’s confidence after 3 years away from the blockbuster scene looms large in this trailer, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the big winner of the 2016 fantasy showdown. 

Jungle Book is slated for release on April 15

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

Is it weird I was expecting a little more than this? I mean don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot to like in the trailer and a lot of cool reveal shots I guess. I just expected a bit more of a “wow!” moment.  I think I, like a lot of people, was expecting to finally get a look at Tom Holland Spider-Man, they’re really keeping that under wraps.  Although, based on what we know of Civil War and what we’ve seen, I kind of question where Spider-Man will fit into things. I mean, most of the film’s action is split among South Africa, the mountains, and an airport, not really Spidey’s stomping ground. 

I really like the minimalist construction of this trailer, especially the “united we stand” shouting that seems to be recorded from a Hydra meeting. The marketing has done a good job making sure not to mention Hydra or Crossbones and Baron Zemo’s involvement in the film, yet their fingerprints are all over this latest trailer, especially in that shot of Bucky in Winter Soldier status. 

My theory is that this is the film’s attempt to have its cake and eat it too. In the Civil War comics, the ending was a big sticking point with fans because Cap just surrendered out of ideological fidelity, even though the pro-registration team was clearly framed as the real villains of the piece. In the case of the film, I think they’re setting up for the revelation that Bucky is still under Hydra control, and that he’s actively leading Cap down a dark path so as to facilitate the civil war between heroes. It’d be a great twist on the idea of the hero’s greatest strength becoming his greatest weakness. 

Captain America: Civil War is slotted for release on May 6

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