Watchman Comic Con trailer and Terminator 4 trailer go online...,

This Watchmen piece was apparently shown at this summer's Comic-Con. It's far superior to the second trailer that came out last month. I'm going to assume at this point that the amount of slow motion footage in the trailers is not representative of the film itself (there's your running time solution right there). Maybe it's just a matter of the characters not actually speaking, or the haunting music, or maybe it's the token footage that deals with the mundane (after all, Watchmen is not hip or cool, but a sad and sorrowful tale of opportunities lost and dreams unfulfilled), but this is a far more promising glimpse into 2009's most nail-biting 'Geez, will it be good?' movie.

And here is the full Terminator: Salvation trailer that just went up. This looks like a dark, gritty war picture that just happens to involve giant killer robots, which is just the way to go with this material. Whatever concessions were made for that alleged PG-13 rating, the tone wasn't among them. Ironically, this may end up resembling the underrated 2002 Christian Bale/Matthew McConaughey dragons vs mankind flop, Reign Of Fire, which was itself incredibly bleak for a summer popcorn film. So far, all signs point to a solid winner here.

Between Watchmen, Terminator: Salvation, and Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, Warner Bros is well on its way to leading the pack this summer (of course, Harry Potter 6 will make so much money that Watchmen can flop and they'll still be just fine).

Scott Mendelson