Trailer round-up: Hancock, Transsiberian and The Longshots

Hancock

Will Smith is knocking them out at a fair old pace right now. Hot on the heels of so-so action-horror fare I Am Legend, here’s his latest effort for box office glory, superhero flick Hancock. Putting a new spin on the hero fable, this sees Smith playing one that’s also a total bum, causing damage and destruction wherever he goes. Half the trailer wisely focuses on his bungled efforts to save the world and stop crime (including an encounter with a whale) and it looks very funny.

Then there’s the other half, in which Hancock’s PR exec explains to him that he needs to change his ways so that the public don’t hate him. The worry is that, on the evidence here, that side of the film could be a little hard to stomach, the mawkishness of it all being all too clear here.

There’s also a glimpse that perhaps Smith has become too comfortable in his own Hollywood star shoes to give any other performance from his usual all smiles, all charm shtick. Even when he’s meant to be an unlikeable bum, he quips here and flashes a smile there and you just want to give him a big old hug.

That said, the action clips in the trailer look great and some scenes are genuinely laugh out loud funny. I just worry that the mush factor doesn’t take over the fun factor in the final product.

Watch it here. And you can check out our review of the film here.

TranssiberianTravelling is fun, especially by train when you can sit back and relax to take in the views. Even better when the views are from the Trans-siberian Express railway. Mind you, things can be scuppered when you run into some apparently friendly travelling companions who end up planting you with some hard narcotics. Imagine how bad things get when a tough, unscrupulous detective gets hold of you.

The drug-smuggling flick was mastered in Alan Parker’s superb 1978 film Midnight Express and while this doesn’t look to be a patch on that, it still offers up enough in the trailer to hold your interest. Woody Harrelson’s comes a long way from bartending in Cheers and looks to be on fine form, utterly unrecognisable with his geeky flop of hair and glasses. Emily Mortimer and Ben Kingsley also hold your interest, with Kingsley’s Russian detective in particular looking rather sinister. There’s also plenty of shots of the stunning scenery.

It looks like this could be an interesting little thriller, with a real sense of intrigue crossed with the threat of violence present throughout the trailer.  

Watch it here.

The Longshots

Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst has taken to film directing and this is his sophomore effort, with another musician turned movie star, Ice Cube, in the lead role.

Ice Cube has an interesting movie CV. Great in films like Three Kings and Friday, quite dreadful in Are We There Yet? and Barbershop. From the looks of things, The Longshots, about how a down and out ex-high school American football star gets his niece into the game to become the star player on her local school team, will fall comfortably within his less inspiring roles.

The main problem with the trailer is that, for what’s supposedly a family comedy, there’s precious little to laugh at. Instead it opts for the sentiment factor, which fails to grab the imagination as you know full well that by the end of the film, the little girl’s team mates will have learned that girls are just as good as boys, while her uncle will have learned that you’re never alone when you’ve got your family around you.

No doubt Ice Cube will also learn that gooey, schmaltzy films might not bring his acting career on in any way, but will equally no doubt pay the bills when our American cousins lap it up. For us Brits however, I have a feeling this will bomb at the box office. Watch it here.