A Look at the Super Bowl Trailers

Battle: Los Angeles

A Look at the Super Bowl Trailers

Movie News

By our guest blogger, Joe Oliveto

Whether you’re a die-hard fan who paints your body in the color of your favorite team and attends games shirtless and drunk, or whether you are one of the few Americans who doesn’t know why everyone is so mad at this Ben Roethlisberger guy, odds are you watched the Super Bowl last night. Even for those who aren’t excited by football, there’s always plenty of entertainment—halftime shows, cute commercials, Christina Aguilera forgetting the lyrics to a song most of us could sing backwards—to keep viewers interested.

That usually includes trailers for blockbuster movies, and this year was no different. Here’s a rundown of some of the new films that announced themselves to audiences last night.


“Battle: Los Angeles”:

Featured early in the night, before the game had really started, this trailer really does make the film look like a generic alien invasion film; “Skyline” with a budget. With talent like Aaron Eckhart involved, we hope that this could at least make for an entertaining waste of time, but we’re going to be only cautiously optimistic.

View the trailer here:





“Cowboys & Aliens”:

Jon Favreau has shown us that he knows how to direct a blockbuster action film, and with a cast featuring Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, and Olivia Wilde, this could be a thrilling summer ride. Some of the CGI looks disappointing and doesn’t blend well with the western imagery, but these are the special effects we have to live with these days.

The only thing missing from the trailer was a real sense of humor, and for a movie named “Cowboys & Aliens,” that’s going to be necessary if audiences are to enjoy it. Luckily, Favreau has a very strong comedic intuition, so there’s probably nothing to worry about.

View the trailer here:





“Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon”:

Well, it looks pretty, but most Michael Bay films do. It’s nice to see him leave behind the usual orange-yellow tint that he applies to most of his films in favor of a much colder blue—it gives us the sense (without much subtlety) that this will be the darkest installment in the franchise.

It’s not like we need another, but hey, these movies make money. It’s a shame that today’s kids have this as their epic sci-fi trilogy, though.


View the trailer below:





“Thor”:

The Marvel universe continues to expand its cinematic presence with this release. While Natalie Portman’s presence should make fanboys happy, it’s tough to tell how this one will turn out. The successful superhero films of the last few years have all put character in the forefront, with spectacle in the background. This one seems like it will be all action and special-effects, and that’s not going to make it memorable.

View the trailer below:





“Captain America”:

Along with “Thor,” it’s tough to tell whether this will be up there with “Iron Man” or “The Dark Knight” when it gets released. To be fair, it looks like the director may be favoring some old-school, conventional action styles for the combat scenes, but the brief view that we got of the film doesn’t suggest that it has much focus on character. There’s not enough there to judge it yet.


View the trailer below:





“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”:

This trailer was mostly Johnny Depp being Jack Sparrow, but that’s never a bad thing. He’s made the character into an icon, and while the cumbersome sequels weren’t quite the fast-paced entertainment that the first film was, Sparrow has always kept the films feeling fun. We don’t get much sense of how strong this installment will be, but it does seem to be more light-hearted than the previous two. That’s a good sign.

View the trailer below:





“Super 8”:

When the teaser for this premiered last spring, it looked like we were in for a sci-fi/horror film. Director J.J. Abrams has said that he wants the film to be an homage to the fun Spielberg pictures of his youth, and we got a lot more of that this time around. There’s still no major plot details, but we do see that it will feature a young male protagonist from a suburban town, as well as a military presence of some kind. Shades of “E.T.,” huh? We’ll take it.

View the trailer below: