Saturday 28 March 2015

"SPECTRE" Trailer Review and Breakdown

Well, I said in my last post that a trailer roundup was coming, and that is still happening. But this is a special case as I am about to talk about the first teaser trailer for one of the most anticipated movies of the year: Spectre. Check it out below:




Yes, that's right guys, 007 is back and....talking in the first trailer for the 24th Bond movie, Spectre. It would be unfair to use the word "kicking" as this trailer seems to focus less on action and more on the emotional and personal aspects of this latest venture. Skyfall took a first step in revealing the mysterious origins of the famous agent and this movie looks set to continue the story, introducing a potentially damaging concept, which I'll dive into in a minute. The tone seems considerably darker than anything else we've seen before in a Bond movie, with the overarching threat of this new, sinister organisation. The trailer does not showcase the full range of talent in this movie with Andrew Scott, Dave Bautista, Ralph Fiennes, and Lea Seydoux noticeably absent, but we do at least get our first look at the plot, which has me simply intrigued so far. So, let's take a look at what was revealed in this first, exciting look:

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So it's clear that this movie carries straight on from Skyfall, with the opening shot showing the aftermath of the bombing of MI6 by Silva.

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Next we have another appearance from Naomie Harris' Eve, otherwise known as Miss Moneypenny, who is delivering everything that the Forensics team recovered from the ruins of Skyfall. Apparently it took them 3 years to sort through it all. Anyway, the contents of the box include this:

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This shows a picture of Bond as a child with a man who is not his father, and who I am presuming is Hannes Oberhauser. For those of you not familiar with the lore or background of Bond, Hannes Oberhauser was Bond's skiing instructor from when he was a young man, before he mysteriously went missing. It's an interesting enough concept to link this disappearance to the SPECTRE organisation. But when you take a closer look, it's immediately put in jeopardy when you look at the paper and it looks like the burnt out face is some sort relation to Bond. This is dangerously close to clichéd, if this is indeed Bond's half-brother or the like and it is the same character glimpsed later, then we are going to be seeing yet another evil brother who the hero is forced to go toe to toe with. 

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Next, we get shots of the snow-covered slopes of Austria, presumably, where the crew of the movie have been filming recently, where Bond has come in search of a familiar face.

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Looking here and especially at the later scenes of the trailer, Bond is well into his search here and believes that the key to uncovering the truth of SPECTRE lies in this little Austrian cabin.

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Then we move onto a funeral scene, which features Monica Bellucci, who plays Lucia Sciarra. In a script leak, Bond apparently kills her husband, an assassin only called Sciarra, and then manipulates her into giving him information on her husband's actions. That sounds great but unfortunately that script, and in particular the ending, was not well received by Sony executives or people online who got to read it in time. At all. Mind you, it was said that time was taken during filming to rewrite the ending and hopefully they have done that.

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Well, it just wouldn't be a Bond movie without Aston Martin product placement now would it? In this case, we get our first look at Bond's new Aston Martin DB10, specially made for the movie.

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Here, we see that Bond has infiltrated a large meeting of what is presumably SPECTRE, while posing as the man he is seeking out in Austria. This scene also displays the huge ranks of SPECTRE. And this does not seem to include the thugs and henchman and is only the high-up members of the group. 

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Bond seems to have evidence to incriminate whoever this man is in being a member of SPECTRE. Maybe its some documents that he has stolen from the meeting that we see a few times in the trailer, or that he has been tracking him across the globe for years, or he can tell by......a ring?

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It is nice to see that the old SPECTRE logo is still being used over a redesign or only being hinted at in the octopus-like shatter in the logo released. A bit clumsy though isn't it? Through these branded rings, MI6, the CIA, and the like could easily identify members of the organisation if they are all carrying them or simply if the government suspect them, raid their home and find this piece of quite clear evidence.

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"You are a kite, dancing in a hurricane, Mr. Bond." This is the warning given by the rather shabby looking Mr White, once again played by Jesper Christensen. You might be saying, what do you mean "once again?" Well, Mr. White last appeared in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, where he was a high-ranking member of the Quantum organisation. Now, if he is not a member of SPECTRE, that is interesting. I originally speculated that Quantum and SPECTRE were the same group and Quantum would eventually evolve into SPECTRE. If not, it looks like the members of Quantum are slowly being hunted down by this new threat, hence why White is hiding out in a cabin in Austria.

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Bond does not seem too phased by this ambiguous warning. Maybe he should be, especially going by the enormous numbers in these meeting scenes!

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Back to the meeting scene as we see Bond looking over the head executives of SPECTRE before the reveal of the new head of the terrorist group.

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The trailer concludes with our first look at Christoph Waltz who plays the villain of the movie, reportedly called Franz Oberhauser. Notice that he has the same name as the aforementioned Hannes Oberhauser from the books. Is he the missing face from the burnt picture? Quite possibly.

So that's all for now. Overall, I'm really excited for this movie, as it did make #3 on my most anticipated movies list. Stay tuned for more content soon!

Friday 20 March 2015

Why Tomorrowland is Going To Be One of 2015's Best

A lot of movies right now are getting a lot of trailers and coverage (don't worry, there's a trailer roundup coming soon covering all of the things I've missed over the past while): Age of Ultron, Star Wars, Jurassic World, Inside Out, Chappie. Unfortunately, that means one particular movie has fallen under the radar. Can you guess which one? Well, if you can't, you're clearly not paying attention to the title. It's Disney's Tomorrowland. Remember that short 1 minute trailer that came out a long time ago. No? I'm not really that surprised if that's so. Nobody really knows what it's about or what the plot is going to be so nobody was paying attention. And that's really unfortunate given how incredible it is shaping up to be. In hindsight, it should have been much higher on my most anticipated movies list of the year, probably ahead of Terminator at least as, in my mind at least, it's shaping up to be one of the best movies of the year. Let me explain why...


1. The Cast



The cast of this movie is quite impressive indeed. Along with younger actors like Britt Robinson and Raffey Cassidy, veteran actors George Clooney and Hugh Laurie also feature in the flick as hero and villain Frank Walker and David Nix respectively.  These actors should all be good signs. Actors as good as this who have been in this business for a long time do not sign on for just any movie. They have to read a sample of the script, talk to the director and be in weeks and even months of negotiations. The fact that they have agreed to appear should signal the makings of a modern classic, something Tomorrowland promises to be.


2. A Completely Original Concept



Be honest, can you think of one original concept coming out this year. A really original concept, that doesn't steal or borrow from lots of different things. Avengers, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Terminator. No matter how much I am looking forward to all of these movies, it will be more of the same. Minions. Basically more of every scene they were in in the first two  "Despicable Me" movies. I could go on. But I won't because I can think of one, because it is undeniable that Tomorrowland is a new concept, quite unlike anything we've seen before. It is impossible to say that you have seen someone touch a pin and then immediately be transported to another world or dimension or....something. We do not know a lot of information about this movie but that only piques my interest even more. The very fact that we are not able to predict anything in the plot or what is going to happen, especially in this day and age, only serves to emphasise how original an idea this is and makes it worth a look, in my opinion.


3. Brad Bird



Brad Bird is the director of this particular flick. Why does he deserve a special place on this list, you might ask? Because this man has yet to put a foot wrong in this industry. Mainly working in animation, he has directed 4 feature films since 1999: The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Those last 3 should be particularly good news, as all 3 are excellent and, from what I can recall, The Iron Giant is very good as well. An acclaimed director, well known for his original ideas and spectacular stories, it is difficult to doubt that he could fail now, especially with a film he has been working on since 2012! 


4. Incredible Effects



Excellent visual effects are hardly something that can be especially related to one film, especially nowadays, but Tomorrowland's effects are really something to be marveled at. These are able to compete with the extremely high-budget releases this year by which I am referring to movies like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Star Wars which rely heavily on them. This is not just robots, lightsabres, lasers and everything in between, but rather a whole city, chock full of high-tech gadgetry, strange sights and the aforementioned robots. An impressive feat even by the standards of current movies, something that would be well worth checking out on the big screen (or possibly the even bigger screen of the IMAX).


5. The Simply Brilliant Trailer


Just watch it and you'll see what I mean:


I hope that I have at least made a case for Tomorrowland and why I think it will be able to stand its own against the most anticipated flicks of the year. Stay tuned for more posts coming soon!