Today's News: lots o' trailers mostly

The latest crop of news of the past few days consists of mostly trailer material:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156970/nieuwe_trailer_serie_gotham

Seems somebody was inspired by Nolan's seminal Dark Knight trilogy. The whole look of this show, based on the trailers so far, screams Nolan in its display of realistic psychopaths and criminals and dark steel and glass canyons. No trace of the more outlandish, fantastic elements of Batman lore. Considering it's an origin show that can still come of course. You've got to show the everyday people behind these heroes and demons before going overboard with any otherwordly shenanigans they might offer. So for the time being, the villains to be set up will dabble in the more commonplace criminal enterprises instead of revealing their odd personality quirks out loud. I doubt we'll be seeing Poison Ivy controlling plant life with pheromones anytime soon, which is probably for the better. It seems that at the heart of the story remains young Bruce Wayne's loss of his parents and honest cop Inspector Gordon's subsequent quest to apprehend their killer, which forms a personal bond between the two of them based around their need for justice. That's as Batman as they come without introducing the alter ego of the Caped Crusader. It's also a basic element of the Batman make-up that the Dark Knight movies kinda raced through, which does make the show stand out more on its own. Question is, will Gordon catch the murderer, or will he fail at that, which makes the urgency for young Bruce feel all the more pressing? And how do all these token Batman villains, like Catwoman, Penguin and Riddler fit into the grand scheme of things? Despite the copycat style, still a lot to look forward to.

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156979/eerste_trailer_outcast

Another medieval Sword & Sorcery flick starring Nicolas Cage as a wethered ex-crusader? Been there, done that, didn't work out so great before. It seems Outcast's plot just trades in the creepy witches and demons from Season of the Witch for angry Chinese overlords and royal family squabbles. And instead of Ron 'Hellboy' Perlman for a sidekick, we get Hayden 'whiny Anakin' Christensen. Also not much of an improvement. Cage's fondness of silly wigs remains, so at least there's some consistency to his career. The entire thing seems like a B-movie with a minute plot based around a string of action scenes, which is to be expected from a movie directed by a first-time director who usually deals with coordinating stunts only; though he has an impressive resumé in that department, no doubt there. Chances are that means the action scenes will be executed rather adequately, which seems like the least we should hope for in this film's case.

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156980/eerste_teaser_woman_in_black_2_

The popular trend of giving succesful horror films a sequel of sorts that doesn't feature any of the characters from the previous installment continues, whether we like it or not. The Woman in Black was a very effective chiller, but its ending seemed fairly definitive, even though it was established that exorcising the vengeful spirit from the title didn't work. That's enough for any studio hungry to cash in on decent box office results (can't imagine they were stellar or anything), so the murderous ghost will soon be at it again. Hammer Studios has a history of fondly remembered horror movies and their many follow-ups, and in a way it's reassuring to know the recently revamped horror specialist studio isn't afraid to use its tactics of old. Do we want a second Woman in Black? Not particularly, but I'm all for period movies with Gothic looks. Hammer has always had a knack for those and the 21st Century seems no different for them in that regard. The premise isn't so bad either. Snotty kids evacuated from WW II London are relocated to a creepy countryside mansion, and instead of finding a delightful fantasy world in the cupboard they encounter a sinister spirit hellbent on enticing them to suicide there. Basically sounds like an evil Narnia, so what's not to like?

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156982/weaver_niet_in_expendabelles

This is quite a setback for the ExpendaBelles project. If you consider old grunts like Sly Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose primary decade of fame and fortune was the Eighties, as the prime action movie stars of their day, Sigourney Waver was their definite female counterpart, thanks to the first two Alien movies - groundbreaking pictures in that regard - and Ghostbusters. There's not that many well remembered powerful older action gals around that remain as active as she is. Terminator's Linda Hamilton maybe? What has she been up to since then? For any other similar femme fatales, you'd have to look for more recent fare. Weaver would have been the project's greatest asset in iterms of casting, so who could fill her shoes now? Sure, there's plenty of grand dames of the cinema who could, but not that many with a memorable action movie background that would warrant their presence. It just goes to show how rare such roles were for females back then. Which made this female equivalent of The Expendables a risky venture to begin with, as there was always a realistic chance those few girl power women of old would turn down a part. Considering The Expendables 3 is not doing so well at the boxoffice - to say the least! - maybe it's a clear signal there's no particular public demand for this type of film at present. However, it's the female bits (no pun intended) that would have made the difference here, and I was quite intrigued as to how that would play out. It would have been great to see theatres hosting a Ladies' Night that doesn't feature a typical romantic comedy for a change. Guess that's gonna take a while longer to transpire, if it doesn't fall through at all.