By now, movie buffs who surf the Internet may have caught a typically deadpan item from the Onion News Network about the forthcoming “adaptation” of the “wildly popular” trailer for “Iron Man” into a feature-length movie.
Cloaked cleverly in TV journalese, the fake-news scamps at Onion claim that Hollywood is in a dither over whether “adding more dialogue and scenes” to a trailer that’s been an online and multiplex sensation since last year is such a good idea.
Funny stuff.
Trailers, it seems, are better than ever. We can see them sooner — and more often. And any trailer that keeps you stoked to see a movie after multiple viewings must have some level of craftsmanship going for it.
So why not rate trailers the way we rate the movies themselves? Here are a selected handful of trailers for this year’s summer movies.
The Dark Knight
You can catch only brief glimpses of The Joker, but he’s nearly unrecognizable as the late Heath Ledger. Aside from the grisly face paint, Ledger uses a sibilant, nasal voice and a menacing physicality to embody the character, which may turn out to be the best part of this otherwise standard-looking (though clearly expensive) installment of the “Batman” franchise.
Pineapple Express
Talk about having us at “hello!” The first look at this action comedy about stoners on the run from crooked cops became an instant sensation on the Web. It’s practically a mini-chase movie by itself, and it really makes us wonder whether a full-length feature can top it.
The Incredible Hulk
Not to be confused with 2003’s plain-old “The Hulk,” this flick stars Edward Norton in place of Eric Bana, plus Liv Tyler, Tim Roth and Robert Downey Jr. But will it be incredible? Norton looks dependably intense as Dr. Bruce Banner, but his green alter ego moves like a stop-motion monster from “Jason and the Argonauts.” And the phony-looking night scenes of city streets being demolished by behemoths don’t inspire confidence.
Tropic Thunder
The teaser trailer for this meta-spoof — starring Ben Stiller and Jack Black as actors who don’t realize their war film has suddenly turned real — is funny enough, but the extended, two-minute-plus version has some truly hilarious moments. Robert Downey Jr. steals the show as an Aussie actor who undergoes surgery to play a black man and gets carried away with his role: “What do you mean, you people?'”
Get Smart
It manages to fold in as many funny bits involving all the principal cast members (Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, Dwayne Johnson and Terence Stamp) as you can pack into a trailer. Sensory overload is the big risk here, but you can’t tell us after seeing this that Carell’s deadpan timing isn’t going to push this over the top.
