Friday, March 18, 2005

Random Thoughts: Ring Two; Red Eye Trailer & Others; More Fog Casting!

The teaser (of sorts) trailer for Wes Craven's Red Eye is here. At first I thought this trailer was giving a lot away. As it turns out, it really doesn't give anything away and seems to be setting up a red herring. The plotline is very similar to Nick of Time, the 1995 Johnny Depp thriller. Cillian Murphy, looking scary and sexy, is not some kind of monster as the trailer seems to suggest. Rachel McAdams, looking sexy and sexier, is in the same plight as Depp's character in Time. (Brian Cox costars, which I did not know until seeing this.) Showing that Craven directed Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street adds to the misdirection. Regardless, this is effective and well worth the download.

Trailer here.

Two more trailers you can catch with The Ring Two: The Island and War of the Worlds.
Both are new. The Island is a pretty decent trailer until you realized the movie its advertising is directed by super assclown Michael Bay. The trailer happily shows its from the director of Pearl Harbor and Armageddon. However, the cast - including Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Honsou, Sean Bean and Steve Buscemi - receive zero billing. Bad move. War of the Worlds is the extended super bowl spot and it is great. I guess they are keeping the aliens top secret. Will it be revealed in the end that the aliens are Jodie Foster's father, too? Only time will tell...

THE RING TWO - 6/10

Is this some kind of horror movie for Dr. Freud? While the mother-son/adandomnent issues were enjoyed by myself, I'm not sure most of the audience would care. The film's biggest problem, however, is that it seems to go nowhere. Scenes work and produce effective chills, but there's a big sense of "so what?" The first film built and built to a satisfying climax, whereas this one just kind of drones along. Its given a great finish complete with the tough Miss Watts perfectly executing what can only be described as the ultimate great bad movie line.

The interesting thing this sequel does is abandon the entire videotape angle completely. Makes sense. Who watches VHS anymore anyway? There's no phone calls with that foreboding "seven days." I enjoyed the way the sequel kept the characters first. The movie begins similarly to the first with Samara upping the body count. (Everwood's Emily VanCamp is witness, replacing Joan of Arcadia's Amber Tamblyn from the first. Alexis Bledel, watch your back.)

I do have to say that whole deer scene was probably the freakiest scene any movie has produced since, well, the horse scene in The Ring. Elizabeth Perkins has a creepy cameo topped moments later by Sissy Spacek's as Samara's mother. Simon Baker doesn't fare as well as Martin Henderson from the first film, though let's hope the Aussie dude kicks ass in the upcoming Land of the Dead. I'll see this again, of course, but I doubt it will have as much endurance as its predecessor.

(Sidenote: I love Oregon. This is gorgeous. I want to live in the town in this movie.)

Speaking of....

Selma Blair has been cast in the Adrienne Barbeau role for The Fog remake. I love Selma, but I don't know how she'll work in this part. The whole aspect of the original Fog that I loved was the deejay overlooking the events. I hope its handled well in the remake. "Look out into the fog..."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home