Trailer Roundup: 'Cowboys & Aliens,' 'Cars 2' and 'Green Lantern'

Posted Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at 4:44 PM Central

by John Couture

It's that time of the season. The temperature dips. Night time rushes upon us before we can even leave work for the day. Leaves change colors and drop to the ground.

Yep, it's Movie Trailer Season. At least, that's what I like to call November and December. You see, studios release big family pictures around the holidays sprinkled among the many Oscar contenders. So, the local megaplex becomes a veritable perfect storm of young and old taking refuge from the cold and the ills of holiday shopping.

The studios are only happy to wet the appetites of this captive audience with sneak peaks of next Summer's bounty. Call it an investment in future gains if you will, but the Movie Trailer Season is one of the most important times of the year for the movie studio. Many a Summer blockbuster has been made or destroyed from these little two minute snippets.

This weekend's release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I is the unofficial start of Movie Trailer Season and the studios have come out with their big guns blazing, quite literally. Making good on his twitter promise, Jon Favreau has released the trailer for Cowboys & Aliens via Yahoo! Movies and it certainly lives up to the hype.

Apparently, Cowboys & Aliens is based on a graphic novel, but the concept seems excruciatingly simple and yet simply sublime. Basically, it's a mash up of Independence Day and Rio Bravo or any old John Wayne Western. What a perfect combination and with a cast that includes Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell, one thing is certain: it will own the box office starting on July 29, 2011.

Coming out a month earlier on June 24, Pixar will try to capture lightning in a bottle twice with Cars 2. Lightning McQueen that is as the American race car takes his show on the road to a worldwide audience. So, Cars 2 is nothing more than a fish out of water story, think the complete opposite of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby where a NASCAR, um car, enters the world of F1 auto racing.

To be fair, the trailer makes it look more like Austin Powers meets Talladega Nights complete with Michael Caine, if my ears don't deceive me. Take a look for yourself below.

If you think that trailer is underwhelming, then just wait until you see the trailer for Green Lantern. Now, I have to insert my generic disclaimer that I'm not a comics guy. I'm as far from it and I do realize that especially with these teaser trailers, the intent of them is to get the fan boys whipped up into a frenzy. The basic gist is that the nerds will explode and said spontaneous combustion will intrigue the rest of us enough to go see what all the fuss is about.

I should also point out that I'm not really the biggest Ryan Reynolds fan either. I find most of his humor grating and, unless you're British, that's usually a bad thing. But given all of that, I made a conscious effort to give this trailer the benefit of the doubt.

While I'm not the biggest comic book fan, I have rather enjoyed most of the comics-to-movie adaptations and yes, I'll admit it, I owned a pair of Green Lantern underoos growing up. So, I was sort of hoping that I'd buy into this trailer hook, line and sinker.

I couldn't be more wrong.

What do you think of these trailers? Are you looking forward to any other trailers that will undoubtedly drop during the Movie Trailer Season?