Trailer round-up: Get Smart, Wall-E and Wanted

Get Smart

According to the Apple Movie Trailers website, this is the fourth trailer for this big screen version of the US TV series. Fourth! Honestly, who really needs to see four trailers of any film? Still, it’s perfectly indicative of each of the efforts I’ve looked at this week which are all the final trailers of films that seem to have been doing the rounds online and at cinemas since at least the start of the year. But I digress…

Last week, I bemoaned the state of the once mighty Will Ferrell in the trailer for the frankly dreadful-looking Step Brothers. Heeding my cries of despair, Steve Carell has stepped forward to proclaim himself as the saviour of broad, slapstick comedy. In several laugh out loud moments (witty interplay with villain Terence Stamp, Carell’s time in the cone of silence, The Rock and a stapler) this suggests he has a surefire box office hit on his hands.

With enough snippets of the actual plot given away to suggest a decent mix of action alongside Carell’s undeniable comedic charm, plus a downright gorgeous Anne Hathaway, this looks like it could be a welcome relief from the action-stacked summer that awaits.  

WALL-E

Pixar has been previewing WALL-E since last autumn so we’ve had plenty of time to get used to seeing the studio’s latest stab at cinematic, and merchandising, glory. Less than in previous trailers, we finally get an idea of the actual plot from this one and it appears what we have is going to basically be a classic tale of robot meets robot, robot loves robot, robot loses robot, robot goes on a journey to find robot again.

The animation looks, as expected, nigh-on flawless but as Cars showed, audiences won’t just settle for pretty pictures any more. Thankfully, there are enough comedic touches in the trailer to suggest it won’t be a bore for the adults while the kids can watch in awe at a character they’ll no doubt be badgering their parents for months.

Wanted

James McAvoy does action and an American accent in a performance that, from the trailer, does him no favours whatsoever. In this latest trailer, McAvoy sounds dreadful and looks completely out of his depth. Angelina Jolie on the other hand looks plain scary, all muscles, scowls and tattoos.

Of course, none of that matters a jot as, like The Matrix before it, this is all about cool action scenes, loud sound effects, and thumping music. Oh, and guns. Lots of guns. If the trailer’s anything to go by, Wanted, based on Mark Miller’s graphic novel, looks like it’s going to deliver on every one of those. Wesley shoots wings off flies, bends bullets and generally kicks plentiful arse. One scene in particular, where he finds an imaginative way of getting around the bulletproof glass problem to kill someone, is a total joy.

I just hope the end result matches up to the early promise shown here. Oh, and here’s hoping the trailer has got all of McAvoy’s bad bits out of the way.

More next week…