ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Gosh, things aren't looking too good in Wonderland. The place seems to be on fire as though Michael Bay just shot a movie in it.
Everybody from the rabbit to the Cheshire Cat to the tea cups look frightened. The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) appears distressed. The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) is still incongruously bulbous. And Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter looks worried as though he's scared of what will happen when Pirates Of The Caribbean truly ends.
Enter Alice (Mia Wasikowska), the liberally frocked heroine, returning to Wonderland to rescue everyone as she plummets from the sky into Kooks Central like she's still fleeing the trauma of Crimson Peak. "You've been gone too long, Alice... friends cannot be neglected", goes the narration.
It has been five years since 2010's Alice In Wonderland and everybody looks bothered and plastered up with thicker make-up via a butter knife for this dark sequel which signals a dreaded intruder or leftover Harry Potter villain being added to the costume party.
He's Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) as dastardly Time, who has ways of upending the crazy decor and making people tick-talk in abject fear, Lord Voldemort-style.
This gorgeously swirling trailer is both sumptuous and something to look at, as if the Mad Hatter has been replaced by the Mad Painter.
WARCRAFT
I've wondered, as I reminisce fondly my long-lost Jurassic childhood of Space Invaders, Pac-Man and ancient 20-cent coins, when they were going to make this epic video-game movie and, finally, it's here.
It looks like The Lord Of The Rings meets Avatar meets The Incredible Hulk meets Ragnar Lothbrok as Travis Fimmel (Ragnar Lothbrok of TV's Vikings) is the main human dude here.
He leads his armour-plated army of humans against an invading horde of huge, body-builder Orcs fleeing their dying world who look like they could thrash the New Zealand All Blacks in a rugby match.
Which means the money shots here in this clip are the clashes of mediaeval knights against massive monsters which you wish The Lord Of The Rings had done more of.
The great twist here is that the sensitive human (Fimmel) and the noble brute (voiced by Toby Kebell) on opposite sides want to make peace, making this a Greek drama amid a geek fantasy.
"They are beasts, they should all be destroyed," declares the party-pooper general among the humans as the Orcs converge as though they're heading to a barbecue party in Hawaii.
This trailer helps the cause because the CGI looks great, the battle scenes are happening and the aerial shots from the giant flying birds' perspective look like an advertisement for a Lord Of The Rings castle nostalgia tour.
One important thing - those big fat warrior Orcs with tusks in their mouths make me yearn for Chinese New Year. They look roast-suckling-pig delicious.
