Now You See Me gets a snazzy, stylish trailer.

This one is near the top of my 'must see' list for 2013, if only for the cracker-jack premise (a team of stage magicians commit grand larceny right in the middle of their shows) and the terrific cast (Jessie Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Melanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, etc.).  So I was happily surprised to get a peak during last night's Breaking Dawn showing.  The trailer itself feels a little rushed and edited somewhat chaotically, but it's also relatively spoiler-free, so that's a plus.  And for those wondering who would narrate a trailer for a film that stars both Michael Caine *and* Morgan Freeman, apparently Freeman won out.  Personally, if I were Summit Entertainment, I would have cut two trailers with both actors respectively narrating.  But no matter, this looks like oodles of fun and I was a little disappointed when it got pushed back to the heart of summer, however much that speaks to the film's alleged quality.  It will also speak to just what kind of film Louis Leterrier can make in America when he isn't being screwed over in post production, as happened on The Incredible Hulk and Clash of the Titans. Now You See Me opens on June 7, 2013.  As always, we'll see, but I'm still very much looking forward to this one.

Scott Mendelson  

How a severe lack of 'cause and effect' undoes all that is good about The Dark Knight Rises, and why its alleged political underpinnings are merely a smokescreen.

It's not the plot holes or periodically silly coincidences.  This will not be a list of 'things that don't work in The Dark Knight Rises' but rather an old-fashioned essay (shocker!) concerning what I feel are the overall screenwriting flaws that tear down and ultimately destroy what otherwise is a technically fine motion picture.  Obviously it's pure unapologetic spoilers after the jump, so tread no further if you don't want to know.  But the short version is that, aside from certain logic issues, almost nothing that occurs during the first 150 minutes of the film truly matters in regards to how the story ends.  And moreover, the unwillingness to focus on the people actually being affected by the (mostly off screen) chaos renders the film's token topicality not only politically irrelevant but dangerously close to exploitation.  To wit...

Weekend Box Office: Seemingly affected by frontloaded anticipation more than tragedy, The Dark Knight Rises opens with $160 million, good for third-best debut ever.

When a heavily-anticipated film debuts alongside a mass murder that takes place during a midnight showing of said film, it's difficult to know how to analyze the opening weekend figures.  Under normal circumstances, the fact that The Dark Knight Rises (trailer/review/spoiler thread) debuted with $160 million over the weekend would lend itself to the usual analysis, dealing with weekend multipliers, midnight-percentages, comparisons to The Dark Knight and other recent blockbusters, and a guesstimate in regards to final domestic outcome.  But it is impossible for now to know what the effect of the shooting had on the film's short term or long term box office performance. So for the sake of this calculation, we will basically presume that the shooting had little quantifiable effect on the numbers.  Quite frankly, looking over the data, I'm inclined to believe as much.  The film did about as well, give-or-take, as it would have been expected to do.  But the numbers, presuming little-to-no effect from Friday morning's tragedy, means that the third Chris Nolan Batman film was a slightly less anticipated affair than the last go-around, which will likely bode (comparatively) ill for long-term grosses.  Basically, horror of horrors, The Dark Knight Rises might just perform like a normal quick-kill mega-blockbuster.

The Dark Knight Rises spoiler discussion thread...

So it's midnight on the West Coast, which means the first midnight showings are just letting out on the East Coast.  Okay, you know the drill.  Here's hoping I have more comments here than I did for The Amazing Spider-Man.  Anyway, I'm actually going to be away from my keyboard for a couple days, but I'll *try* to do a weekend box office write-up on Sunday morning.  Until then, it's officially open season for anyone who saw the third and final Chris Nolan Batman film.  You've heard my thoughts, now time to share yours, in as much detail as you desire.

Scott Mendelson

Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is the least of the Nolan Bat-films, continuing the curse of the comic book threequels.

The Dark Knight Rises

2012
165 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson


First and foremost, I cannot decide at the moment if The Dark Knight Rises (trailer) is a 'better film' than Spider-Man 3, Batman Forever, and/or X-Men: The Last Stand.  The fact that I have to outright state as much should tell you what a comparative disappointment this film is.  Overall, its many storytelling flaws bring the picture down, offering only engaging acting, entertaining character interaction, and the kind of empty-headed (but oft impressive) action spectacle associated with more conventional blockbusters.  It is a hodgepodge of several classic Batman stories squished into one chaotic narrative that ends up resembling a mash-up of Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Rocky III. There are moments of emotional engagement in the first third and the final moments pack an appropriate wallop.  But the film frankly drags for much of its middle 90 minutes on its way to a surprisingly unremarkable climax.  Save for mostly fine performances, including a terrific supporting turn by Anne Hathaway, and some wonderful character beats scattered throughout, this is sadly the very definition of an unnecessary sequel.

Watch/Discuss: The Dark Knight Rises panders to the 'I want it now!' crowd, gets one more (generic) trailer.

This smells desperate, folks.  With just a month to go, Warner Bros. drops a third full-length trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. This bothers me on two levels, neither of which are related to the film itself (the film is what it is and we'll know soon enough).  First, the near-daily stream of television spots, some of which are quite spoiler-y, followed by a release of a third trailer, reeks of desperation.  Not about the film per-se, but about the apparent need to stay relevant on the film blogs (which in theory translates into mainstream interest by playing the 'show them everything 30-120 seconds at a time' game that has been the status-quo this year for tentpoles.  Next I assume Warner Bros. will start releasing clips to boot.  Point being, they don't need to play in the mud with everyone else.  The Dark Knight Rises would have been a mega-smash if they didn't realize anything other than a teaser and a one-sheet.  To see the marketing department unwilling to follow their own pitch-perfect template from The Dark Knight is not a little dispiriting, akin to Michael Jackson's later albums not breaking new ground but rather aping the younger musicians who followed in his footsteps in a bid to stay relevant.  This new trailer represents a lack of faith and I'm disappointed.   My second gripe is with the trailer itself.

The Dark Knight Rises gets a pretty solid theatrical one-sheet and six rain or snow-soaked character posters..

I seem to be in the minority, but I rather like this poster.  Unlike the two key posters for The Dark Knight, there are no nonsensical tag-lines ("Welcome to a City Without Rules"), no odd imagery of Batman standing in front of a burning building as if he's claiming credit for said explosion, and no odd placement where the point of visual focus is a giant wheel from that silly Bat-Pod.  It's just Batman himself, appropriately brooding with the unofficial logo for the film (the buildings of Gotham collapsing into a bat-symbol) and a variation on the "The Fire Rises" would-be catchphrase (doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "Why So Serious?").  Of note, Anne Hathaway gets billing above Tom Hardy implying either Hathaway is the obvious bigger star or Bane's role is smaller than has been let on.  I remember being shocked when Tommy Lee Jones got billing ahead of red-hot Jim Carrey in Batman Forever only to realize that Two-Face was actually the primary villain as opposed to The Riddler.  UPDATE - Warner Bros. dropped three moody and rain-soaked character posters and three less impressive snow-drenched character posters this morning, so I'm adding them below the jump.  Anyway, there isn't much left to do but speculate until this starts screening toward the very end of June, with junket screenings likely falling before July 4th weekend and regular press screenings starting about 1.5-2 weeks before July 20th.  Am I as excited for this as I was for The Dark Knight four years ago?  Not even close, but I have no reason thus-far to believe that The Dark Knight Rises won't be an awfully good action-drama.  As always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson

Painfully obvious sexism watch: One of these JOURNEY 2 posters is not like the other. Hint, it's the one with giant boobs are more important than giant bees.

 

Here are four character posters for Warner Bros' upcoming Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.  Each poster highlights a lead character and a respective giant animal menace.  As you can clearly see, the focus point of three of the posters is the actual special effects creation that is chasing our heroes.  In three of the posters, the human character is smaller than the monsters, thus making the giant animals themselves the center of our attention.  Of course, the second poster on the left, the one highlighting Vanessa Hudgens is a bit different.  In her poster, the flying bee creature is smaller than Hudgens's profile.  So if the giant bee is not the center of attention isn't the fx monster in this poster, than what is?  Why, Hudgens's boobs of course.  As you can see, the largest thing on the poster, the thing that is clearly intended to be the focus point for Hudgens's poster is the young actress's rack.  The marketing team at Warner Bros. didn't see fit to fetishize Dwayne Johnson's massive muscles or any manly attributes that Josh Hutcherson may possess.  But in her character poster (and the main poster on the left), the young actress's breasts are apparently the main attraction. Because of course when you're a girl in a generic or male-driven mainstream genre film, even when it's a PG-rated adventure aimed at younger kids, the only marketable attributes you have is your 'fuck-ability'.  Stay classy, Warner.

Scott Mendelson