Well, we’re off to the races people. Summer blockbuster season is officially upon us and the Hollywood hype machines are working at full force. Today clips from arguably the two biggest movies of June have found their way onto the internet. New scenes from X-Men: First Class and JJ Abrams’ excitingly/frustratingly mysterious Super 8 are now available online. Both blockbusters have a great deal of potential and the new clips certainly don’t reveal anything that will dissuade viewers from that opinion, but don’t expect to see anything earth shattering. It’s pretty simple stuff cherry picked for marketing purposes. You will however get to see 30 more mysterious seconds from Super 8 as well as an early look at X-Men: First Class’ Hank McCoy (aka Beast) in action and far more Oliver Platt than was ever expected to be in an X-Men movie. These flicks are looking like they’ll be pretty damn good. Hopefully they’ll deliver on the hype unlike, say, a certain pirate-related sequel. Hit the jump to see the clips. X-Men: First Class opens on June 3rd whileSuper 8 hits theaters on June 10th.
First off here’s the latest 30 seconds from JJ Abrams’ Super 8, courtesy of Fox television’s current “Super 8 at 8” series of mini-previews. I’m not sure if short 30-second clips from a movie that will be released in a few short weeks qualifies as must-see primetime TV, but at least Fox is putting the footage out there.
Once again it looks like we’re getting a vintage Spielberg-style alien conspiracy movie set in the suburbs. No new info was revealed in the clip other than the fact that the main kids seem to know a Dr. Woodward, who in turn knows the severity of the threat these aliens present. Annnnnd that’s all we get. Nothing much, but at least it builds on the mystery. I’m not convinced that this movie is going to contain some sort of mind-blowing twist worthy of this mysterious marketing. More than likely, I think that Paramount and Abrams are just trying to recreate the fantastically oblique marketing campaign they used for Cloverfield. It might not be as appropriate for a summer blockbuster, but in an era where most trailers give away 2/3 of the plot, it’ll actually be refreshing to walk into Super 8 not knowing exactly what to expect.
Next up, here’s the new X-Men: First Class clip. Head on over to Yahoo! Movies to see it in HD.
Again, nothing earth shattering, but it’s starting to look like this project has come together well. Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) is a very underrated director and a strong choice to helm the project. While on paper it sounds like this might be a quick cash-grab X-Men reboot for Fox, it’s actually a great opportunity to tell the original X-Men story from Stan Lee’s 1960s comics (even though only Beast is the only character from the original comics to make it into First Class). The first run of Bryan Singer supervised X-Men movies (let’s just pretend Brett Ratner was never involved) were more influenced by the 80s and 90s X-men comics, leaving out so much great material about the earliest days of the X-Men and Professor Xavier’s uneasy partnership with Magneto (no points for guessing whether or not they have a falling out). Seeing this footage of Xavier meeting an early hairless Beast should make devoted X-men fans smile in recognition, while Jennifer Lawrence is already proving to be a noble Rebecca Romijn stand-in as Mystique.
So there you have it. Shockingly (sarcasm alert) the brief clips specifically selected for internet release by Paramount and Fox make both Super 8 and X-Men look good. Whether or not they’ll play as well in their full feature length form without the gentle editing sheers of a marketing department remains to be seen. But at least for now, things are looking good.
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