Trailer Roundup: MAN OF STEEL, R.I.P.D., MANBORG, and THE KINGS OF SUMMER

I dig trailers and hope to bring you readers the occasional selection which are either highly anticipated or simply look awesome to me. The intent here isn’t to bring the newest, quickest, most hot-off-the-presses stuff, but simply to highlight what has come out recently and to discuss what we’re digging and not digging. Let us know what you think!

MAN OF STEEL

First up, what is being called the “third” trailer for MAN OF STEEL. I don’t know if it is the third trailer, specifically, because that first one had a couple of versions featuring either Kevin Costner narrating as Pa Kent, or Russell Crowe narrating as Jor-El. Either way, I’m pretty sure I’ve never choked up in a super hero movie TRAILER before ol’ Dances With Wolves came along and dropped a little compassion on us all. Check it out:

Now, I’m one of the only people I know who had a BLAST with Bryan Singer’s SUPERMAN RETURNS. That said, I haven’t revisited it since the theaters. It is just that Superman has never really been all that important to me as a character. I don’t dislike him or find him boring like some do, he just never made it into the inner sanctum of my beloved geek properties. But something has generally had me feeling… cool… towards Zack Snyder’s reboot. I was thrilled at the casting of Michael Shannon as Zod. But otherwise? Leary at best. But this trailer did it’s work on me. It sold the film to me. Sure, I was going to see it in theaters either way, (let’s be honest, here) but now I’m actually really anticipating what I believe could very well be a great superhero film. Plus, did you SEE Michael Shannon in this thing? Brilliance.

MAN OF STEEL hits theaters 6/14/2013.

R.I.P.D.

I was really anticipating seeing trailers or imagery from this one. I’m not really sure why, because: A) I’m not familiar with the Dark Horse Comics property at all, B) I’m leaning towards a belief that the Ryan Reynolds experiment is failing, and C) I’ve only ever seen one of director Robert Schwentke’s other films. But that film was RED, which I passingly enjoyed.

I gotta say, this trailer isn’t doing much for me. Casting Jeff Bridges was some kind of coup d’etat because he is leagues above this material in my book, and even his futuristic Rooster Cogburn spin isn’t winning me over. I don’t know… there are some fun looking shots and a couple gags that made me smile. So I won’t judge too harshly. But the less anyone actually vocalizes what R.I.P.D. stands for, the better we’ll all be. Hopefully the final product is significantly better than this trailer. It has happened before and it will happen again!

R.I.P.D. hits theaters 7/19/2013. H/T: AICN

MANBORG

I had the privilege of catching MANBORG at ActionFest 2012 and had an absolute blast with this movie. The team behind MANBORG go by the name Astron-6 and I believe they are a breath of fresh air in the indie B-movie world. MANBORG is basically a Roger Corman film set inside of a KILLER INSTINCT game cartridge from 1991. There are all kinds of low-tech special effects that brought me intense joy as I watched MANBORG on the big screen, and a sense of humor that totally worked for me.

Manborg trailer from MPI Media Group on Vimeo.

Reactions to MANBORG have been all over the map since it played Fantastic Fest a couple of years back and as much as I love it, many seem to hate it with equal amounts of misplaced passion. I encourage you to check it out if that trailer looks even remotely appealing to you because it is pretty much selling exactly what you are going to get!

MANBORG hits select theaters and DVD simultaneously on 4/30/2013.

THE KINGS OF SUMMER

I had never heard of this film until the trailer appeared in my inbox. I don’t always read the emails or watch the trailers when I get marketing emails like this. But I may have mentioned that I do love a good trailer. So I’m really glad I clicked on this one. I know nothing about the lead actors (although I see Allison Brie briefly here, as well as a quality moment with Nick Offerman.) And director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has done some TV work, but nothing I am familiar with. But the film has what I consider to be a pretty killer trailer and apparently some Sundance buzz that I heard absolutely none of.

What do you all think? I’m a sucker for coming of age movies, but I get a really energetic STAND BY ME vibe off of this thing that has me interested.

THE KINGS OF SUMMER hits theaters 5/31/2013.

And I’m Out.


Originally published at cinapse.co on April 20, 2013.

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