Today the wonderful folks over at Warner Brothers had a presentation showing some clips of their upcoming summer movies. After a bit of talking about how awesome they are as a company and how they have enough money to purchase Canada and turn it into a Bugs Bunny theme park if they so desire, they got into the part of the presentation all of us movie nerds were waiting for.
First up was Joel Silver talking about Speed Racer:
“This really is a first for us. It's something you've never seen before. I know I've said that before. But the Wachowski Brothers said 'We have an idea, a way of making something people haven't really seen before. There's been lots of nieces, nephews who haven't seen our movies because primarily we're R rated guys.' I too am an R rated guy. This movie is a PG family movie that they wanted to make for everybody. And they did it. And they said 'We're not gonna make this like the standard grays and blacks in a dark, dirty world. We want a bright colorful beautiful world. And we want beautiful people in it.' And we got a beautiful cast. But they said, 'We have an idea of doing it in a way that is fresh and unique, and it involves the focal plane. Instead of seeing the way things are conventionally seen, we want to change that concept. So that when people look at something, they normally see the foreground which primarily is in focus and the midground and the farground which is normally out of focus. But if you watch a cartoon or see a painting, everything is in focus. So we want to make a movie where everything is in focus.' And I said, 'Why?' And they said ,'Because it's more interesting.' I'm now gonna show you guys 4 minutes of Speed Racer.”
I'm really not sure how to describe what I saw, because for once a producer was right. I really hadn't seen anything like this before. The movie is absolutely beautiful looking and jumps right off of the screen. It's a cross between the video games Wipeout and F-Zero stuck in a giant box of vibrant crayons. Everything is moving at a frantic pace and the Mach 5 has all kinds of gadgets, like the ability to spring over other cars, re inflate it's tires and even has shields in the wheels. They showed us a lot of racing with the cars pinballing off one another at incredible speeds. If you've seen the new trailer, you know what this film will look like. But having every plane be in focus gave the film a depth you never see in live action movies. Granted, it's live action over computer backgrounds, but what they showed us was incredible. Sorry, hard for me to describe a bunch of bright, flashy cars smashing the shit out of each other in a pastel and neon colored world.
The next clip they showed was for Get Smart. In this clip, Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) is going on his first assignment. He's stopped by two gadget makers who want to give him a Swiss Army knife loaded with a flamethrower and web line using the latest in spider lined nano technology. It also holds a crossbow. The next scene he and Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) are sitting next to each other on an airplane. 99 comments on how the gigantic man (played by the WWE's Great Khali) sitting in the back must be a terrorist. Smart says she profiling and should stop, until he turns around and sees him. He then says “His head looks like an Easter Island head!” Smart then gets annoyed at gum on the bottom of the shoe and starts to scrap it off with a matchstick. A passenger notices him doing it and yells “Hey, he's trying to light his shoe! It's a shoe bomb!” and Smart says, “No, it's gum.” Another passenger then screams “Gun!” and Smart is tackled by an undercover air marshal. The next scene shows Max sitting in a seat with his hands zip tied together. He gets up to go to the bathroom when he notice the air marshal is hitting one of the hostesses. Once inside, he opens up a secret compartment in the wall with two parachutes. He then takes out his Swiss Army knife and uses the mini crossbow. But instead of it cutting the zip tie, it ricochets and pierces right thru his ear. Each subsequent shot ends up with the arrow ricocheting off something and stabbing him in different body parts. It's pretty funny. He then finally cuts it but it ricochets back up and his the airlock button. Without his chute on, he gets sucked out of the airlock. 99 goes next and notices Smart didn't use his chutepack. She immediately puts hers on and jumps out after him. She catches up to him and deploys her chute, but they both notice that the giant terrorist guy has a parachute and jumped out as well. He cuts 99's parachute and Smart and 99 separate and continue to free fall. 99 tells Smart she'll be right back and goes after the terrorist and cuts his backpack and chute. She then descends back to Smart and tries to open her reserve but the terrorist manages to grab both of them in a bear hug and they can't escape or open her reserve chute. 99 then kisses the terrorist right on the lips, and he lets go and falls while 99 get her chute open and they both land safely, with Smart reminding 99 that she missed the hay stack which would have made for a softer landing. The film looks like it's going to be a riot and this clip pretty much took any doubts out of my mind as to how the film will be. I'm really looking forward to seeing it.
The next clip was of The Dark Knight, but it was the same opening bank scene that has already been shown. We have a description of that scene located HERE.
The next clip was for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 or as I like to call it Four Walking Vaginas Who Smile and Try to All Have Their Magic Periods at the Same Time of the Month 2. Sorry, I'm a grown male and kind of spaced out on this one. Guess I'm the wrong demographic. But I'm sure it's filled with magical cupcake moments.
The last clip was for Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated movie. George Lucas came on stage accompanied by six stormtroopers. I wonder if he actually has real security guards at his house dressed as stormtroopers. I'm sure there are plenty of Star Wars nerds who would do it for free. He talked about how this movie (leading into the tv series) focuses on the gigantic clone wars and is action packed. The scene we saw was Anakin and his padawan, Asako are landing in a ship on a planet where an enormous battle is taking place. Anakin, the stormtroopers, and Asako land then run up to a giant structure that has robots on top firing at them. Anakin says he'll race Asako to the top. The scene shows both of them climbing with their lightsabers out, deflecting lasers while ascending the ropes. In the next scene Obi-Wan comes in contact with what I assume is a Sith. She and Obi-Wan immediately start fighting. She's using two lightsabers to Obi-Wans' one. So maybe she's Christopher Lee's padawan or something. They start fighting back and forth until Obi-Wan is disarmed, and with his back against the wall. The girl says it's time for him to die before the scene ends. The film looks good but the animation style they used may take some getting used to.
And that was pretty much it for the Warner Brothers presentation. Between The Dark Knight, Speed Racer, get Smart, Star Wars and Traveling Panties, Warners looks to have a pretty exciting plate for this summer. C'mon, spring! Hurry up and get over with so we can see these kick ass movies!!!
Get Smart and Star Wars my Dark Knight by Traveling with your Pants and e-mailing: george@latinoreview.com
