Mission: Impossible 3

We all know how these movies work by now. Phillip Seymour Hoffman will be the bad guy who does clever evil things, Tom Cruise will save the day, and Ving Rhames will have a small role to remind audiences that he's been in every movie. The M:I theme music will play while explosions go off everywhere, and Michelle Mognahan will be put in peril so that Cruise can save the day in a more crowd-pleasing manner. Actually, I meant to describe the movie, but I've managed to describe the trailer, as well. Makes sense, since the Mission: Impossible movies each play like overlong trailers anyway.

Billy Crudup, Keri Russell and Simon Pegg have roles, but they are absent from the trailer. What does make it into the trailer are Cruise and Hoffman exchanging scowls, some explosions and gunfire, and that god-forsaken theme music. The one element I really liked was a final scene where an explosion erupts about 100 feet behind Cruise, and he is flung forward into the side of a parked car. But that has largely to do with me hating Scientology. The rest of the trailer looks...well, like it's Mission: Impossible 3.

The Inside Man

Spike Lee's latest film finds Clive Owen staring straight at the camera, narrating about how he planned and executed the perfect crime. The trailer cuts to Owen and his crew robbing a bank, dressing the hostages up to match the robbers, and Denzel Washington being called in to negotiate. Jodie Foster shows up to be the evil political bitch working for the mayor, or the governer, or somebody who will do something bad to Washington if he screws up. Owen and Washington battle wits, Foster says condescending things, and blah blah blah.

The Inside Man looks like one of those "clever" movies, where the entire film hangs on the twists and turns of the plot, completely ignoring the characters caught up in it. There will undoubtedly be a few scenes that attempt some basic stab at humanity, but those will be swallowed up along with everything else just as soon as another clever plot twist is unleashed.

Nothing about the trailer made me think the movie would do anything other than manipulate me. It would not involve me, not arouse my caring or concern for anyone or anything, just jerk me around until I'm not even sure I should trust the credits. I already own the Basic DVD, so I can stay at home and feel that way.

Poseidon

The trailer includes the claim "From the director of Troy and The Perfect Storm...". I'm not so sure that will help to bring in audiences.

This remake of The Poseidon Adventure appears to stay pretty faithful to the original, meaning that it is an old-school disaster flick with loads of special effects and lots of screaming, hysterical people. Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Emily Rossum and a slumming Richard Dryfus lead the emsemble cast. It is unclear which actors are filling which roles from the original film, but I certainly hope that Russell has either Gene Hackman or Ernest Borgnine's role, and I pray that Josh Lucas does not have either of them. Andre Braugher has a small role as the ship's captain. The ship's blonde captain. I'm sorry, I like Braugher, but blonde was the wrong hair choice.

The trailer is a standard disaster movie trailer, so not much can be inferred about the actual movie beyond the genre that it is in. But for a disaster movie, is doesn't look bad. Or great.

X-Men 3

X-Men did a decent job for a comic book movie. It wasn't fantastic, but it didn't betray the quality of the comics. X-Men 2 roared into theaters just ahead of Matrix: Reloaded, kicking its ass and showing audiences that sequels could far surpass the originals. Now comes the 3rd film. Rumors have abounded on the 'net for the last two years that the franchise's latest entry may be the series' first weak point. A bad script, Halle Berry's reluctance to appear in the film if she can't be the star, a producer burning all his bridges with his egomaniacal behavior, and a rotating door of directors. Now that the smoke has cleared a little, a few details have been locked down. Halle Berry signed on. Brett Ratner is directing.

If the script is a bad one, I will say that the trailer does not show it. In fact, for all the hurdles that seemed destined to make this movie fall flat, the trailer looks damn good. The plot incorporates aspects of the comics' Dark Pheonix storyline, but is also about an all-out war between Mutants and Man. The trailer is just a teaser, but several lengthy and empressive effects shots are shown. Jean Grey/Pheonix walks down a hallway as all the doors in front of her tear off their hinges as she nears them. Magneto rips away a section of the Golden Gate bridge. James Marsden emotes. Even Kelsey Grammer as Beast didn't look half as bad as I had feared.

If the script turns out to be horrible, the teaser trailer has at least brought me a couple months of hope.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

I liked the original movie. Lots of people liked the original movie. In fact, so many liked it that Jerry Bruckheimer took note of which parts they liked best, then gave the order to have a sequel made entirely out of those parts. Only this time, those parts will be bigger, louder, brighter, and explode twice as much. Also, the villain will be the legendary Davey Jones himself. I really fear for the third film (currently in pre-production), which has nowhere to go except fighting Satan deep in the bowels of Hell itself.

Dead Man's Chest looks just like the first film, but plugged into a larger amplifier. There was nothing outright wrong with the trailer, but the flashing scenes of swordplay, cannons, ships at sail on unforgiving seas, and pirate zombies all stunk heavily of sequel overkill. And astonishingly, the humorous moments in the trailer belonged to Orlando Bloom, not Johnny Depp. I'm sure Dead Man's Chest will be kind of fun, but like Men in Black 2 will eventually collapse from trying too hard.