Men In Black 3

Much like the first trailer, this trailer provides exactly what you would expect from Men In Black. Will Smith starts with an amusing quip about goldfish as we see the massive fight he just had with a fish. This is followed by some comparably amusing physical comedy involving a tongue that is way too long – nothing too serious here. We already know the film’s premise – some sort of dimensional change has placed Will Smith in a position wherein Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent K has not been alive for forty years. Smith’s Agent J decides to go back in time to rectify this situation somehow (time travel paradoxes surely abound regardless of his plan). There, he finds a young K, played by Josh Brolin, who mimics Jones’ cadence almost flawlessly. Great casting there. Little is achieved in the past, although there is another humorous interaction with Bill Hader as Andy Warhol, who is surprisingly not an alien.

Side note: Lady Gaga is rumored to be in this film. What are the chances that they make a joke about her being an alien at the end of the movie, a la Dennis Rodman in the first film?

The Hunger Games

We have another Hunger Games clip, and you better believe that I’m going to keep talking about this movie until it comes out in two weeks! It’s not a great clip though. Whereas the clip we saw last week represented an important point of the plot’s progression, this clip focuses on some of the minutiae of the story. It also features our first real glimpse at Lenny Kravitz, actor. Ya, he did Precious, but I’ve not seen Precious. Anyway, this clip is the first time Katniss and Cinna meet, which is both notable and forgettable. Every time Jennifer Lawrence speaks in this clip, I think, “Katniss is so angry and guarded right now.” Every time Lenny Kravitz speaks, I think, “Lenny Kravitz is trying to act. Lenny Kravitz is trying to act.” Once again, he appears to be too forthright with his rebellious tendencies, but that’s something I’ve resigned myself to.

21 Jump Street

A red band trailer? Oh dear. I continue to be annoyed by websites that ask you to enter your birthday to make sure you’re old enough to view whatever media they are in charge of. Who are they fooling? Do they think people will be too surprised by the sudden appearance of an internet form that they won’t be able to come up with a fake birth date. Despite being of age, I always put the wrong date, on principle. It is for this reason that I learned this week that February 29, 1983 is a date they accept, despite the fact that that date never happened.

The trailer itself is solid, even though it pretty much just expands on what we’ve seen in the other trailers. The opening sequence has an amusing conversation in which Channing Tatum tells a biker he’ll beat his dick off. A fun turn of a phrase, it culminates with Jonah Hill getting absolutely trucked by a massive biker. An arrest ensues, and Hill celebrates by shooting his gun in the air. Four times. All of this is amusing, but the whole incompetent cop shtick can wear off pretty quickly. Thankfully, the trailer veers away from that and instead comes back with a few more mind-twisting dialogues. Funny, but not hysterical. The way they see Rob Riggle while using the drug is also moderately funny, but not original.

There are, however, a few legitimately entertaining moments towards the end. In what appears to be a typical, “savant writing on a blackboard” scene, Channing Tatum explains a complex science/math problem (what he says doesn’t make any sense), but when we see the board he’s only written “4’ a few hundred times in various sizes and colors. The two best lines go to Ice Cube though. When hearing that Tatum and Hill are throwing a party, he cautions, “If any of my officers are caught giving alcohol to minors, they’ll find themselves with a snorkel duct-taped to their mouth, and me shitting down that snorkel.” Guess that’s why this is a red band trailer. Finally, “So let me get this straight, you [Hill] fell in with the cool kids, and yo ass [Tatum] fell in with the smart kids? Those drugs are fucking up these kids more than I thought.”

Side note: Dave Franco was playing a med student on Scrubs three years ago. We’re supposed to believe him as a high school student now? Come on.

Dan Spritz / Cherry On Top / @DanSpritz