Superbowl Trailers: first footage from 2011’s most-anticipated films

An average of 111 million Americans tuned into this year’s Superbowl. However, this article isn’t about the game, but the interesting part of the show: the film trailers. Every year, film distributors pay ridiculous amounts for one of the coveted advertising slots, and this year’s trailers provided glimpses at some of the year’s most anticipated films. But if the trailers are anything to go by, let’s hope that these aren’t the year’s best films…

If I learnt nothing else from watching these trailers, I learnt that 2011 is going to be a big year for sci-fi. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford star in Cowboys and Aliens, a film that should have been good fun, but the humourless trailer makes it look more like Transformers in the Wild West, which, just to clarify, is not good.

J. J. Abrams’ Super 8, on the other hand, looks much more interesting. It’s impossible to guess at the film’s quality based on the limited plot details and the extremely brief shots used in the trailer, but it’s definitely worth watching out for.

Another alien outing is Battle: Los Angeles, which should be better than the average alien invasion fare as it has chosen to focus on the soldiers fighting them rather than families running away from them. It’s a premise that shows promise, but the trailer suggests a lack of heart that could be its downfall.

The final sci-fi advertised, The Adjustment Bureau, also looks to be by far the best. It looks like a true mind-bender, as well as a thrilling chase movie, and it’s out in March!

My initial dubiousness about the two biggest superhero films of the year was amplified by their Superbowl trailers. Captain America: The First Avenger has all the signs of a boring origin movie, and it actually seems quite similar to Hellboy due to the wartime period setting and Americans doing dodgy German accents. Thor looks better (and more fun), but still decidedly average, with leading actor Chris Hemsworth bringing an unwelcome woodenness to proceedings.

There are also a couple of action-packed driving movies set to torture our screens. Nicolas Cage vehicleDrive Angry boasts its use of 3D, and this is not surprising; anyone that can make Nicolas Cage three-dimensional deserves some form of recognition. As for Fast Five, ridiculous doesn’t even cover it.

The typical summer sequels were also on display. Transformers: Dark of the Moon certainly doesn’t look to be correcting any of the mistakes made by Transformers 2, with the only difference being that pouting brunette Megan Fox has been replaced by a pouting blonde. (We may scoff, but Michael Bay is still guffawing after the first two movies took $1.5 billion at the box office.)

As for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, loathe that I am to say it, it actually looks quite good. The fun levels seem to have been cranked up but, no matter how much of an improvement it is, it will still be a sequel that the first film didn’t need.

CGI animations also seem to be prominent this year, but they appear to be competing for the Highest Levels of Mediocrity Award. There were trailers for lazy offerings Rango and Kung Fu Panda 2, as well as Rio, which comes from the makers of Ice Age. Unfortunately, the trailer suggests it will be lucky to match the standard of Ice Age 2 and 3.

Other films advertised were swords and sandals fantasy The Eagle (formulaic), vampire movie Priest (rubbish), ‘kind-of’ superhero film Limitless (a limited concept), and comedies Take Me Home Tonight and Just Go With It. I say comedies…

Therefore, it was a largely underwhelming selection of trailers. However, there is one ‘film’ I have not yet mentioned: Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. Never.

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