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Shazam Trailer 2!

Finally, is my first reaction when seeing this pop up in my YouTube recommendations. We’ve been waiting for this trailer to drop for what feels like an eternity.

I was, honestly, ever so slightly disappointed: much of the footage in the trailer is stuff we’ve already seen before. There’s not a lot new to talk about – more fun little things, like Shazam trying to leap high buildings in a single bound, only to drastically fail by smashing into the side of a skyscraper. That cracked me up. But other than that, and a scene with Shazam holding up a falling bus, there’s just not that much. Thankfully, though, the trailer doesn’t lower my expectations in any way: I’m still pretty sure that this movie will be a very fun experience, and it’ll probably be a good Christmas movie – frankly, I’m confused as to why they decided to release this obvious holiday movie in early April, which just seems…odd. This trailer does, in fact, seem to be downplaying the strong Christmas element from the first one, though, so perhaps it’ll end up working in its spring release date anyway.

This trailer also gives us one particularly great shot, at 0:25, of Billy Batson transforming into Shazam as he leaps from a building – it’s a great shot, even if we saw it before in a teaser.

I am definitely eager to see this movie: unfortunately, it’s been dragged into the ongoing social media outrage about Captain Marvel, which led to Shazam actor Zachary Levi making a statement on Twitter, where he asked fans not to pit the two films against each other simply because Shazam happened to be called Captain Marvel years ago in the DC Comics. If I wasn’t excited to see Shazam before, I definitely was after that, because Levi proved himself to be a truly good human being with that statement.

Trailer Rating: 8/10

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Fantastic Beasts 3

Spoilers for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, ahead!

 

Following Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, viewers were left with a myriad of unanswered questions. However, most of us took assurance in the fact that we would only have to wait two years for the next installment to figure out things like: how is Credence a Dumbledore? How is Minerva McGonagall alive years before her birth? How is it even humanly possible that Eddie Redmayne continues to get more and more adorable in the role of Newt Scamander?

However, our hopes were rudely shattered by the news, which broke in January, that production of Fantastic Beasts 3 had been pushed back to the fall of this year – it had been expected to start production in the summer. This was followed by the revelation that the release date rumored to be reserved for Fantastic Beasts 3, November 20th, 2020, had been given to the sci-fi epic Dune. Now we’ve been able to glean a few more details about why the production was delayed. In an interview with the LA Times, Warner Brothers chief executive Kevin Tsujihara revealed that he is aware that Crimes of Grindelwald was no critical darling, and that its box-office gross was not what he had hoped for: he suggested that this is being taken into consideration now, and that J.K Rowling is “working hard” on the script for Fantastic Beasts 3, which is interesting, since she finished writing it all the way back in December. Tsujihara also said that the third film will be better even than the first Fantastic Beasts movie, and that Rowling has “an incredible vision” of what the future installments in the series will be like. This is all very promising, especially when combined with Fantastic Beasts actor Dan Fogler’s statement that Fantastic Beasts 3 will be bigger than the first two movie combined. We can only hope that more news is on its way, and that we can get answers to our questions soon. But at the moment, it seems most likely that Fantastic Beasts 3 will be Apparating into theaters in 2021. That, of course, is small comfort for all of us fans who are dying to see what happens next to Newt & Co., but in my opinion the delay will actually be helpful: Crimes of Grindelwald, of course, was torn apart by critics and had only a moderate success at the box-office, so giving the production team more time to craft an excellent movie is not a bad idea, by any means. Continue reading “Fantastic Beasts 3”

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Detective Pikachu Second Trailer!

So, to be honest, I’m coming into this movie woefully unprepared: my knowledge of Pokémon is limited to a sticker book I had as a kid, and a few animated movies that I used to watch – though, granted, I watched those movies a lot, and they were quite good. Back then, when I was about ten, I could probably recite the names and skill-sets of about twenty different Pokémon off the top of my head. Now…well, I know there’s Pikachu, and…

(I’m being too harsh on myself, honestly. I did remember Mewtwo when he appeared in the trailer, even if I didn’t necessarily remember his name.)

But anyway – so, aside from the fact that I really don’t know any most of the Pokémon, I think the trailer looks pretty appealing. It doesn’t strike me as anything too fantastic, yet: Ryan Reynolds’ Pikachu is undoubtedly the main draw for me – there’s something irresistibly intriguing about this new take on the fuzzy yellow critter (plus, hearing Pikachu say “hell” is somewhat endearing). This second trailer is definitely more interesting than the first, for me – here, we see some sort of secret laboratory being teased, which looks quite exciting, and the story takes more shape: we learn that Pikachu is suffering from amnesia (huh?), and the whole reason for him being a detective is given a bit more explanation. The Snorlax at 0:40 is absolutely adorable – more adorable than Pikachu, I’d almost dare to admit. We’ve got the Mewtwo reveal at 2:04, accompanied by Pikachu exclaiming “That’s a twist”. There are definitely things here that make me interested, but I’m not yet hooked to the point where I need to see this movie. It’s odd: I know Pokémon was a large part of my childhood, and, as I said, I loved the animated movies, but this doesn’t give me those types of vibes. Maybe it’s the transition to live-action and the more generic Hollywood feel to this story. Anyway, I’m interested to see more from this movie – I need something to really draw me in, and I’m not quite there yet.

Trailer Rating: 7/10