Super Bowl Trailer Hitch
For January 29th
By Zach Kolkin
This ad, while not astounding, was fairly good. I liked the idea of the
camera circling around the closed doors with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith on
one side and the bad guys on the other. Other than that, though, there was
nothing particularly spectacular in this spot, as one often expects from Super
Bowl ads. After seeing something like The Matrix or The Hulk, this far
more "ordinary" movie just didn’t seem very thrilling. Sony probably would
have done better to focus on the humorous side of this movie and throw in a
few good gags that would have set the film apart a little bit more from your
average action flick.
This was, for me, one of the most disappointing spots of the night. Instead
of introducing new scenes to the audience, we were instead shown what was
essentially a butchered version of the full trailer that was released last
month. Consequently, those who had already seen the full trailer were
completely underwhelmed by this preview, and those who hadn’t weren’t shown
much to be excited by. Perhaps the only big revelation was the fact that the
Terminator was female, but even that was already common knowledge to all but
the most casual of moviegoers. While I think many people were very excited by
T3’s full trailer, I doubt that this Super Bowl spot will make much of an
impact. Warner Bros. could have done a much better job getting people
excited for what should be one of the biggest hits of the summer.
7. The Recruit
The Recruit’s Super Bowl ad was similar to the television spot that has been
showing for several weeks now. I personally think this film looks quite good,
though I understand that it does not have the mass appeal that some of the
other films featured during the Super Bowl might have. Al Pacino looks quite
good in his role as the shady CIA recruiter/mentor, and Colin Farrell appears
to fit well into his role too. Like Bad Boys 2, I think this spot was
probably hampered by the fact that this a much more "normal" looking movie
than some of the other films on this list, and therefore it didn’t have
anywhere near the same "wow" factor. Nevertheless, this is very clearly a
film aimed at a male audience, and what better place is there to advertise
that than on the Super Bowl?
Though this trailer really didn’t show us too much in the way of new footage,
it still looked fairly good. Opinions on the film seem to be somewhat
divided, though, so I would imagine that most people were not too moved from
their current opinion on the flick by the Super Bowl ad. The one possible
selling point for the film that might have presented itself here was the fact
that Jennifer Garner’s post-Super Bowl Alias was being heavily hyped
throughout the game, and seeing her in the Daredevil ad as well might have
caused some people to make the connection as to who this girl actually is. I
personally think that most people will be turned off by the fact that this is
a far lower-profile comic book movie than, say, Spider-Man, and thus the
nostalgia factor will be much lower. Daredevil has been heavily advertised on
television for almost a month now, and I don’t think this Super Bowl ad had
much of an impact on awareness for the film.
I liked this teaser a lot, and in fact I thought it was done much better than
the first teaser that was shown in theaters. The ad has just the right
combination of sex, action, and humor. I’m sure many people who hadn’t
already seen the teaser in theaters were pleasantly surprised and amused by
Bernie Mac as Bosley. The sex factor was obviously amplified here, as the
audience was predominantly male, but part of what made the first movie such a
hit was its appeal to women as well as men. I would imagine that later
previews will take both genders into account slightly more when deciding what
scenes from the film to show.
This spot had me cracking up, as the chemistry between Jack Nicholson and Adam
Sandler here is just hilarious to me. Watching Nicholson taser Sandler, and
Sandler tackling the priest, and Nicholson smashing car windows just had me
rolling on the floor. Even the closing line ("That’s why I’m proud to be an
American") was great. I personally can’t wait to see this film, and I imagine
that other viewers were similarly amused. While I can imagine some people
being immediately turned off by their dislike for Sandler, he does look to
have a slightly less grating persona here, and I would think this would
eventually become apparent to most moviegoers. In any case, this ad was very
funny, and certainly raised this film’s profile substantially.
Coming into the Super Bowl, this was the teaser that everybody was dying to
see. Although I don’t feel it completely lived up to expectations, it was
fairly impressive. Obviously, the goal of any movie trailer shown during the
Super Bowl is simply to increase a film’s level of exposure, and this ad did
that wonderfully. There were various scenes of mayhem and destruction
involving the Hulk, all impressively accompanied by an invigorating rock
song. Jennifer Connelly was seen briefly as well, though obviously she is not
the main attraction here. My one gripe with this trailer involves the CGI of
the Hulk. I was (perhaps unfairly) expecting something amazing after seeing
what was done with Gollum last month in The Two Towers. Here, though, I
thought the Hulk looked a bit too cartoony, though perhaps this is on
purpose. Nevertheless, this teaser certainly served its purpose, as it has
all of us talking about it the next day.
Although Anger Management’s teaser was very good, Bruce Almighty was, in my
opinion, the best promo for a comedy of the night. Jim Carrey is returning to
goofy comedies here, and the result is a film that looks extremely
funny. "I’ve Got the Power!" perfectly accompanies Carrey’s hijinks as he
learns just how much he can do with his newfound abilities. The dog using the
toilet bit is quite humorous, though I have a feeling it will get old if it
continues to be used as the centerpiece of the film’s advertising campaign.
Nevertheless, this film looks surprisingly good, and so far the promotion has been excellent. I expect that this film will have quite a lot of
people interested in it by the time it comes out in May.
Whereas the Hulk did not meet the huge expectations developed by its hype,
this teaser for the two Matrix movies being released this year managed to
meet, and even surpass, the expectations of even the most ardent fan of the
films. Everything looked incredible - the car chase, Agent Smith crushing the
car, Neo fighting all the Agent Smiths at once, the list goes on and on. The
preview smartly chose to reuse the music from the original movie as well,
giving the audience yet another link between that film and these new ones. Of
all the films previewed during the Super Bowl, this one got me the most
excited by far. Considering that The Matrix is one of those movies that
everyone seems to love, I can’t imagine that viewers weren’t similarly
thrilled by these scenes from the two new films.
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