One sentence synopsis: the Black Plague has struck, and the result is zombies across the land; cue insane badassery.
One sentence trailer thoughts: I'm still on board.
Expanded thoughts: the teaser was good enough to make me interested, and happily the first official trailer hasn't done anything to change that. Sure, some of the sequences look a little over the top, but overall it does seem interesting to see a society changed by the appearance of zombies due to the Black Plague, and how they adapt to such a bizarre world.
One sentence synopsis: Jane's husband is in bad shape and persecuted, and there's only one way she can help him: with a gun.
One sentence trailer thoughts: Ok, I'm listening.
Expanded thoughts: as I mentioned before in my Bone Tomahawk review, I'm a fan of Westerns; but the name of this particular one sounded so stupid I was avoiding watching the trailer out of disinterest. Well, I finally gave in, and turns out it looks pretty good. Not a "holy shit, I must see this!" kind of good, but an "Ok, I'm listening" sort of good that makes you willing to devote a slow afternoon to go to the movies and have a swell time.
This film is NRA approved.
The cast seems pretty cool too, besides Natalie Portman. We got Joel Edgerton as the co-lead, an actor of good talent that is on the rise in Hollywood, as well as Ewan McGregor as the main antagonist. Natalie doesn't seem forced in the role of a woman in the West out to defend herself on her own... and in fact it just dawned on me what this was reminding me of: Claudia Cardinale's Jill McBain from Once Upon a Time in the West, though she didn't go as far training with guns (that I can recall). Anyway, Portman looks comfortable in the role, and I'm intrigued.
One sentence synopsis: do you really need to know this?
One sentence trailer thoughts: ummm...
Expanded thoughts: I wasn't blown away. In fact, I had sort of the same reaction as with the teaser from last year. Well, not exactly, I liked this better. The trailer's certainly good, and the movie definitely looks good, but it lacked a certain... oomph to it, something to push it into epicness hyperspace.
After watching it three times (as of this writing), I'm still a bit bothered by the three different character voiceovers of Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), especially this last one, which seemed a bit forced. Also, did not like the look of this shot at all:
The lighting on that shot looks off, fake-ish, too CGI. Might work in the context of the movie, so I'm not completely dismissing it right now, but my first impression of it isn't good.
One of the dogfights look like a mix of Hoth's battle from The Empire Strikes Back with Endor's Death Star battle from Return of the Jedi, which is both a good thing, and not.
It's a trap!
And of course, this shot reminded me of Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky, which is good:
The trailer did raise a couple of questions, such as what is Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) doing with Kylo Ren? Is he a prisoner? For some reason, my first thought was that somehow his origin is linked to Kylo Ren. I don't know. Anyway, the other question is, is Finn really going to lightsaber fight Kylo Ren? Even if he ends up having the Force, I don't see how he can win that duel.
All in all, I would rank this as the second best Force Awakens trailer, behind Luke's voiceover one. Good, but not great.
