Predicting movie quality....

[philosoraptor42]

Okay, I'm discovering that a good trailer doesn't make a good movie. In fact I'm wondering whether perhaps it's true that a good trailer means a bad movie. (I've heard a similar hypothesis about car adverts.)

The Terminator 4 trailer really convinced me that it was going to be great, but in the end the only thing which carried on into the movie was the gritty stylish look. About the only saving grace about the movie was how it looked and, as you might imagine, that really wasn't enough.

Anyway, I wondered whether, if I consider all the trailers that look good to me now, how many will still seem so good when I see them later on?

So here's where the test begins.

First, here's a few recent bad judgements about trailers:

Push

Blood: The Last Vampire

Right now, I strongly want to watch both of these movies. Admittedly the latter of them is slightly biased by the fact that I've seen the original anime movie and absolutely loved it. Anyway, here's the rotten tomatoes scores:

Blood: The Last Vampire: 57%
Push: 22%

Ouch!

And yet I'm still convinced that I want to see both of them. (Hey, I guess advertising works after all! Blooming mind control - grrr!)

Let the predictions begin!

The following are all movies that, right now, I reckon will be really good, but how good will they seem when the critics check them out? I am not going to base my final decision purely on the trailers. I will inevitably be biased by my knowledge of the people involved and would be daft to pretend that wasn’t a factor in my decision. Even so, it will be interesting to see how good these movies seem once the critics get their teeth into them…

Gamer

I was intrigued by the title. A movie about video games? We've had some attempts at this in the past. "eXistenZ" from David Cronenberg was completely lacking in any plot and seemed to involve games where you make things out of fish. Yeeeeah.... Then there's "Avalon", the live action Polish movie from Mamoru Oshii (of Ghost In The Shell fame). It was pretty awesome, though a little slow and perhaps a little overly pretentious. Some parts of it were awesome though. I wonder if someone will make a movie of Terry Pratchett's "Only You Can Save Mankind" one day?

So anyway, after all that, "Gamer" is an interesting take on the "are my video game characters real?" kind of idea. Looks very cool (and with Dexter in it, you count me interested).

The Box

It's the Donnie Darko director. Sure he's also the creator of the widely panned "Southland Tales" (and, it turns out, the writer of the horrendous movie "Domino"). However, let's give him another chance, eh? *gulp*

Surrogates

Okay, well I'm of the opinion that the presence of Bruce Willis will often save a bad movie anyway. Nevertheless, couple that with this intriguing sci-fi plot and I'm sold. I've seen this trailer in the cinema already, but that doesn't mean it's getting released here any sooner than the rest of them.

District 9

Did you guess where that was going? Cool eh?

Yeah, the new take on illegal aliens from Peter Jackson looks pretty amazing and I'm really excited about it.

Inglourious Basterds

Well, as a Quentin Tarantino fanatic there was never any doubt that I was going to see this. Sure, his last outing "Death Proof" turned out to be a bit of a Turkey (and it's the only one of his movies that I would say that about), but on the other hand it was supposed to compliment Rodriguez's excellent sci-fi/horror romp "Planet Terror" so I guess we'll forgive him (what else am I gonna do?).

Daybreakers

Okay, actually this one looks utterly ridiculous, but…. Sam Neil! Sam Neil as a vampire! In the future! Squeeeeeee!

REC 2

This isn’t going to look like much to most of you. However, the original REC was a zombie movie done in the Cloverfield style (which appears to be the new and cooler way of saying “Blair Witch Project style”). Unlike “Cloverfield” it had characters who were interesting rather than irritating the hell out of you and unlike Romero’s “Diary of the Dead” it wasn’t a cinematic train wreck. It also had the benefit of making sure that there was a reason for the presence of the camera even when they are being chased by zombies. (In Cloverfield I wondered whether they didn’t have more important things to worry about than making sure everything gets filmed.) In REC 2 it looks like the cameras might be mounted on helmets, probably so they make this film more ‘action-packed’. This may or may not turn out to be a good thing. REC was more of an “intelligent” zombie movie and I can’t help but worry that in a more ‘action-packed’ sequel the intelligence might be abandoned in favour of ‘thrills’.

 

 

So yeah, that's about it. Here's my guess, based solely on the trailers as to which will be best:

7 - Gamer
6 - Daybreakers
5- The Box
4 - Surrogates
3 - REC 2
2 - Inglourious Basterds
1 - District 9

Let's see what I think when I actually see them.....