Trailer round-up: Blindness, The Wackness, Traitor

Blindness

Trailers depicting chaos and disorder are never less than intriguing, and so that proves to be the case here. The teaser for Fernando Meirelles’s latest flick, released earlier this year, was a taster of this interesting premise of a mystery illness that’s causing wide scale blindness. Now, this full-blown trailer expands further, suggesting a story that will deal with themes of loss and the breakdown of society.

Julianne Moore always impresses me and she looks on fine form in the snippets on show here. Mark Ruffalo and Gael Garcìa Bernal are also on hand to lend their fine acting talent to the mix. The echoing voices throughout and the faded, white-tinted colours perfectly reflect the sense of doom suggested throughout and when the excellent score from Sunshine kicks in, you get the distinct impression that this could be a soaring success. Mind you, M Night Shyamalan’s latest apocalyptic effort promised the same thing…

Watch it here.

The Wackness

The latest in many for this knowingly cool-as-fuck flick wisely opts for Josh Peck’s fantastic voiceover coupled with genius tracks from the era. When said era is the 90s, we’re talking Biz Markie; we’re talking the Fresh Prince. Put Summertime together with a very slo-mo walk and it works wonders.

The Wackness is basically about Luke Shapiro, a young drug dealing kid who’s also looking for love. This latest trailer is really promising, with funny lines, a great performance from Peck, references to 90s stars like Jason Priestly and loads of stylish visual styles thrown in for good measure. Probably won’t get the audience it deserves but I for one can’t wait to see it. Not even the presence of Mary-Kate Olsen can steer me away.

Watch it here.

Traitor

The last time I saw Don Cheadle was in Ocean’s Twelve. Witnessing the return of his mockney shtick as Basher, I held my head in my hands. Here is a fine actor, one that elicited a few tears in his standout performance in the harrowing, but excellent Hotel Rwanda. Naturally, I ignored Ocean’s Thirteen on principal and missed Reign Over Me. So his upcoming appearance in Traitor, an espionage thriller with the usual who-dun-it, why-dun-it kind of vibe going on, has me in two minds. While it’s great to see him tackling more serious stuff again, these types of trailers always worry me. It looks to be the same kind of vehicle they gave to the Cloon-dog in The Peacemaker, Will Smith in Enemy of the State, hell, even Owen Wilson in Behind Enemy Lines. All bluster and crossed purposes, with the odd curve ball thrown in for good measure, the end result is a two-minute spot that looks suitably slick, but is ultimately a bit of a confusing mess.

Check it out for yourself here.