As creative director of Australia’s well-known movie event Popcorn Taxi (and founding editor of the nation’s Empire magazine), Chris Murray has seen a trailer or two in his time — so we asked him to run down his 10 favourites of the decade.
So what makes a good movie trailer? What’s the secret to instilling hope, wonder, and hand-clapping, air-punching excitement for an impending release that forces one to run screaming, “Have you seen the new…” , without even so much as a “Hello”?
Film trailers (the good ones) are designed to release geek serotonin directly into the cerebral cortex, turning grown men and women into fan boys and girls, heightening anticipation towards the unknown. They’re also designed to make skeptics part with their hard-earned dollars and concrete the mass populous into believing this is a must-see experience.
Now comes the rub: how do we whittle down the first decade of a new century into 10 examples of 1-2 minute greatness? Easy, be subjectively honest. This list will cause debate, eyebrows to be raised and fists to be clenched, but that’s the idea. Rest assured this list was not taken lightly, and we welcome your thoughts and opinions.
Dim the lights and pretend you’re seeing these for the first time without ever having seen the film proper… and try not to get too excited.
Ridley was back! Eighteen years since Blade Runner with little to show bar a flash of chick-flick genius in Thelma and Louise (and some Michael Douglas hair flair in Black Rain), and we’d all given up hope. But a swords and sandals epic with Kiwi hell raiser Russell Crowe, enhanced CGI combined with real blood, sweat and tears that harked back to a lost era in large-scale filmmaking? Now we were chomping at the bit. What sealed the deal was the opulent scale shown in this trailer, the pomp and indulgence of the characters, the risk taken on Joaquin Phoenix (not to mention Rusty himself) and the clink of swords and flashes of broad daylight violence in the colosseum; not to mention a tiger having a swipe… yes, a real life tiger! No man with a childhood fantasy — nor woman with any type of fantasy — could resist this sensory feast.
Verhoeven remakes The Invisible Man: need we say more? A high-tech stainless steel and digital ‘cool’ world is presented with an aura of doom and horror, all the more heightened when we see Kevin Bacon turn into a skin-stripped living cadaver of muscle and circulatory system. Yes! Let’s not forget this is from the director of Starship Troopers, Flesh & Blood and Showgirls; so of course our hero is immediately a sexually charged voyeur preying on girls in showers throughout the entire city… and maybe, just maybe, he wants to kill a bunch of people too! Pure guilty pleasure shocks and jumps are assured, plus it’s Kevin Bacon seemingly as an invisible predator preying on the silly and the sexy. You know you want to see it — in fact, I defy people not to hire it immediately after watching this trailer again.
Consider the pressure, the doubt and the greater population of Bond fans with knives sharpened to tear apart the new 007, Daniel Craig. Then we’re offered this teaser trailer: quite simply one of the ballsiest, in-your-face introductions to a reimagining of a franchise this side of Batman. Forget that invisible car crap, forget the indulgence of double-entendres now floating far too close to Benny Hill territory, and meet a guy who uses his fists and feet to great effect. It’s the Bourne series in a tailored tuxedo. It’s flashes of amazing production value bookended by grit, sweat, style and voluptuous women in ballroom gowns. It’s cars, machines, stunts, travel and adrenalin… lots of adrenalin. It’s the new Bond — and we were all gagging for it.
Wes Anderson’s producers have a dilemma. Their ‘talent’ is a universally respected, imitated and praised darling of cool art house cinema. So how do you get more ‘normal’ people to see his films without alienating the core? Make an intelligently funny trailer that oozes raw humility and charm… and play Bowie! Mannered music choice and the cult of oddball is a winning combination for engaging newbies to Anderson’s schtick while reassuring fans all is well in Weirdsville. A highly stylized and old-school production value blended with music from Devo, New Order and David Bowie alongside a kooky introduction to a dysfunctional marine documentary crew led by Bill Murray — now just hell-bent on revenge — it’s just too enticing to pass up. Add to that the confident reveal that you have a stellar cast as well as high-brow attitudes to low-brow humour, and bingo: great trailer success.
That this works on so many levels (when by rights it should suck) is a triumph of ‘funny’. What better way to approach the art of a biographical theatrical release, when you are a proven TV genius, than to reduce the competition to a joke by poking fun at the very thing you need — a great cinematic trailer. Yet in doing so, Seinfeld managed to celebrate the art form from an anecdotal and loving perspective.
“What is it with that ‘in a world‘ guy?”
You could picture Seinfeld onstage, reciting every line in the trailer to the roar of laughter from a crowd, but the secret was to take him completely out of the equation and, by default, comment on the lazy marketing of an entire industry. We also get introduced to the man behind that voice we’ve heard all our lives. It’s genius, and frankly should have been the basis of an alternate documentary to the snore fest that was the actual film.
The old ‘What’s in the box?’ approach to marketing: tease until they simply can’t take it anymore. The marketing boffins at J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot knew exactly what they were doing when presenting this cinema verite of upmarket New York youth having a funky night out until something rips the head off the Statue of Liberty, all seemingly captured on home video and mobile phone technology. The second trailer gave far more of the cause away and showed the incredulous scale of the grandiose ‘trick’, but this initial trailer is the one that really has you in disbelief and excitement that a new dawn in ‘reality cinema’ is upon us. Are terrorists attacking, or is it another entity all together? Either way, there was no chance you were not going to see this and find out.
Bar the opening words as we see Max being piggybacked by a puppeted beast towering amongst the forest landscape, this is a dialogue-free excursion into childhood wonder and nostalgic ‘happy tears’ like nothing before it. Ticking every emotional box possible via the genius choice of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” as we see key scenes from the much-loved book, glimpses of extraordinary production design and constant movement (running, jumping, explosions, boats etc), this has you thinking like a 9-year-old on Christmas eve. It’s impossible to not feel something very personal and magical while watching this trailer, and for those who disagree… you obviously hated being a kid.
It had been four years since the Wachowski Bros captured the entire thinking-geek population’s imagination with their trip down the rabbit hole; The Matrix was no longer a film, it had become a genre against which all other cyberpunk, leather-clad hotness meets fantasy future-shock would be judged.
Then we saw this.
Analysis, debate, awe and collective cries of “Oh my God!” circulated the globe. This new excursion had an almost Mad Max-meets-Michael Mann feel with those incredulous freeway sequences. And damn, but did that guy that just crushed the bonnet of a car with his feet get up and keep jumping? What’s with the dreadlocked dudes oozing through windscreens? Neo looks like a monk? Just how many Agent Smiths does it take to bash the crap outta someone? And the finale of all finales in a trailer: Neo is Superman?!
Of course, Matrix Revolutions ruined it for everyone, but here, this trailer made you think the coolest movie ever made was about to hit the big screen. That’s a job well done.
Opening with an airplane cruising over a foreign land, titles informing you this is indeed the “4th film from Quentin Tarantino” with a funky guitar soundtrack erring towards rock, the man himself’s voice then yells “action!” — and wham! Action is exactly what this trailer explodes upon you. Uma Thurman, many swords, choreographed martial arts on a grandiose and theatrical scale amidst sets that are quite clearly just that — sets. Close quarter combat in caravans, kitchens, restaurants; frying pans going ‘clang!’, motorcycles, Daryl Hannah with an eye patch, Asian schoolgirls with medieval weaponry, Michael Madsen, axes flying in slow motion, mystical teachers standing on sword blades! A little bit of Tarantino girly-banter to relieve the tension and then a Bruce Lee-jump-suited Thurman running up a stair banister to slice off a head. Folks, words fail to accurately describe just how freakin’ awesome this proposition was to a legion of fans who wanted to just see what Tarantino did best after a six-year absence — pay homage to his favourite things. Here it was clear his favourite thing was to see cool chicks slicing and dicing their way through a fantastical adventure. We ran to the cinema. Sprinted, even.
“Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint…”
For a grown person to feel that they’re about to see the greatest costumed hero film ever made, the sensation is electric. To know the film is indeed a sequel to one of the best superhero films ever made, a continuation of a reimagining of The Batman, no less; the sensation is orgasmic. Add to this that the actor playing the lead villain has suddenly and tragically died — and his character is the most famous comic villain of all time, The Joker — well, that sensation is now borderline disbelief. But after a teaser trailer which showed no more than a Batman moniker being flayed in white light to key dialogue, this follow-up had all in speechless wonder. It looks like Michael Mann’s Heat, the violence and mayhem amplified to dizzying heights for a comic book film; and when we finally saw our villain he was real, dangerous and amazing. As Heath Ledger walks across the wet road brandishing a machine gun yelling “HIT ME!”, your hairs stand on end. We haven’t even spoken about a semi-trailer doing a somersault!
This trailer captured the imagination of audiences for their own personal reasons, whether it was the iconic glimpses of The Joker basking in the chaos out the window of a moving police car, or Batman aboard that ridiculously cool Batpod. Christopher Nolan’s vision crosses gender and social class effortlessly as his interpretation is intelligent, dangerous and exciting. Batman Begins set the bar so high it seemed like nothing could top it… but this trailer changed the landscape for the comic genre to inspire audiences to spend over a billion dollars at the cinema– on what’s essentially an adult thriller about two psychos trying to balance their own sanity.
The best film trailer of 21st Century thus far… and it’s based on a character created just over 70 years ago.
Find out about Popcorn Taxi’s upcoming programs at their website, here.
