Written by Matt Goldberg
This summer at Comic-Con, the audience in Hall H during Fox's presentation got a look at the first footage from next summer's upcoming "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". While the whispers of chaos on the set and Fox execs just douching it up in general, the footage was a lot of fun. We got some quick glimpses as mutants like Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) and Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) but the focus was primarily on the relationship between Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Sabertooth (Live Schreiber). It looked like a lot of fun. Sadly, that was not the trailer I saw the morning and the trailer you'll be seeing if you choose to see "The Day The Earth Stood Still". I didn't take any notes so I'm doing my best to recall from memory but the general sense of the trailer is, "WOLVERINE IS THE MOST EPIC MAN WHO EVER LIVED. EVER." There's choir music in the backgrounds, shots of Wolverine storming the beaches at Normandy and then cutting to him holding the woman he loves as she dies in his arms and I'm thinking…isn't Wolverine supposed to be fun? It's that line between bad-ass and emo soul. Both have darkness but only one is a man about it (hint: it's not the one who listens to A Simple Plan). The action in the trailer looks ridiculous, with one scene in particular that had me laughing and then crying. Did you know Wolverine can fly? He can in "X-Men Origins" as he launches about thirty feet in the air and lands on top of a helicopter but thankfully in that sweet spot between the cockpit and the blades. The trailer also takes the time to give you brief glimpses of the other mutants involved in the Weapon X project but other than Wolverine, no mutant gets as much attention as Gambit. It was almost as if to say, "Stop! Hey fanboys! Look! It's Gambit! Finally!" It's strange because while I like Taylor Kitsch, I would say that Gambit has as much fanboy recognition as Deadpool but if you stop the trailer to point out Deadpool, non-fanboy audience members are going to recognize Ryan Reynolds. At least this new trailer lines up with the crushing disappointment I'm hearing the film is going to be anyway. You can decide for yourself once it hits online (whenever that may be) or if you see "The Day The Earth Stood Still" this weekend (which is bad but not quite as bad as the trailer for "Wolverine").