The latest Star Trek movie trailer is online, and you can watch it right here. This reimagining of the franchise definitely looks more serious and dramatic than past incarnations, but also looks to up the ante on the action as well. This movie trailer didn’t completely blow me away, but Star Trek remains one of my most anticipated movies of 2009.

Watch the Star Trek movie trailer now:

The movie trailer for Pandorum is now online. The Dennis Quaid-starring movie comes to theaters on September 4 (you know it must be good!), and is described as:

From the creators of the Resident Evil film franchise comes Pandorum, a terrifying thriller in which two crew members wake up on an abandoned spacecraft with no idea who they are, how long they’ve been asleep, or what their mission is.  The two soon discover they’re actually not alone — and the reality of their situation is more horrifying than they could have imagined.

Watch the Pandorum movie trailer:

Okay, to compare Battle for Terra to Delgo, the biggest box office flop of all time, is unfair. Unlike Delgo, Battle for Terra has a major distributor (Lionsgate), has pretty good special effects and, most importantly, a marketing campaign. I just received my first marketing pitch today.

Unfortunately, the Battle for Terra movie trailer leaves little to be desired. You can watch it here:

The movie is about an alien race that finds themselves the target of another race that wants to inhabit their planet: humans. The humans, who have been reduced to Battlestar Galactica-type numbers, are running out of options and, being the technologically advanced civilization, decide to invade. However, their invasion will amount to genocide – and not all of the humans are on board with the plan.

Battle for Terra does not look like a very good movie. The trailer is boring and lacks the life and enthusiasm that one would expect from a film like this. It’s an animated film, which it’s problematic: the movie seems way too serious to have the look and feel of a cartoon. If this had the visual effects of Final Fantasy, it would make more sense, but instead it appears to have family friendly graphics with a serious, adult plot. What parent would want to take their kid to this when they could wait until November to see Planet 51, a movie with a similar but much lighter premise (humans land on an alien planet).

Furthermore, it isn’t clear who the good guys here. The humans are on the verge of committing genocide, and from the trailer it looks like they carry through with their attack. While the aliens appear to be the protagonists, there are also humans that question the invasion. Basically, who do we root for?

On a basic level, the Battle for Terra movie trailer lacks the entertainment value that animated movies need to draw audiences into theaters. On a deeper level, the premise itself is problematic. Lionsgate doesn’t have any experience distributing a movie such as this, and one wonders why the film is being released wide on May 1st. Just wait a week for Star Trek, people.

I just watched the two-and-a-half-minute movie trailer for The Great Buck Howard, which stars Colin Hanks and John Malkovich, with a guest appearance by Colin’s father, the little-known actor named Tom Hanks. The movie is about a washed-up performer who is still living in his glory years until his new, youthful manager helps get him back on the fast track.

The movie looks entertaining enough, and Malkovich appears to be in his element here as the overly enthusiastic and seemingly fake title character. Unfortunately, the movie trailer itself is not that good. It’s about 45 seconds too long, not very well structured and altogether just a little bland. Worse is that it establishes no sense of conflict – things just seem to get better and better for Howard – so now that I’ve seen this trailer, what’s the point of seeing the movie?

Watch The Great Buck Howard movie trailer yourself:

I just watched The Mutant Chronicles movie trailer, and all I can say is wow. And by “wow,” I mean… meh.

The Thomas Jane/Ron Perlman sci-fi action flick looks a lot like the Vin Diesel film The Chronicles of Riddick, and we all know how that worked out. I wonder how many people are going to make the same comparison, given the similar plots and titles.

The Mutant Chronicles looks like it could be fun… if you can get past the B-grade visuals, acting and actors. Neither Jane nor Perlman scream great casting, and while John Malkovich is a great actor, he does have a tendency to show up in some pretty bad movies when playing characters like this. In other words, you can tell which movies he’s chosen simply to finance that fifth house.

As far as movie trailers go, the Red Band movie trailer leaves little to be desired. For one, I didn’t see anything “restricted” about this trailer – studios, having already abused the marketing pretenses of “unrated” DVDs, are now starting to take advantage of “Red Band” trailers, tricking people into thinking that they’re going to get to see something naughty or off-limits. Don’t expect a ton of gore or nudity. Beyond those issues, though, the movie trailer doesn’t try to make us want to see this film. The setup to the action is terrible, and it creates no sense of dread or suspense. I’m actually not quite sure what the movie is about or who the mutants are.

Let me know what you think – here’s the Mutant Chronicles movie trailer:

You can learn more about the movie by going to the Mutant Chronicles movie details page.

I just watched the teaser trailer for the upcoming movie Planet 51, assuming it was a comedy but not knowing that it was an animated flick. The CGI – and movie in general – looks somewhat generic, though not bad by any means. While the teaser trailer didn’t blow me away, I did love two things about the movie trailer:

1. The final scene, where an alien mom is telling her kid to take the cough syrup, otherwise the boogie man will come and get him. Cue the NASA astronaut who jumps through the window – the kid grabs the bottle and starts downing it.
2. The alien dog. Yes, all but one of the characters is an alien, but this alien dog looks very similar to a certain alien that Signourey Weaver spent the better part of her career battling. It pees acid (making for a lot of crooked light poles and mailboxes) and has a tongue with another tongue inside it. Great creature design!

That’s all I had to say. You can watch the Planet 51 teaser trailer here.

I just watched the movie trailer for the new John Cena movie 12 Rounds, and at least it looks a little better than his last one. The movie is going to be a brainless, B-grade action film, but it does look like an action film that could make for a good rental. Cena stars as a cop who is accidentally responsible for the death of a criminal’s girlfriend – a year later, that same criminal kidnaps Cena’s girlfriend (the sexy Ashley Scott, from Jericho) and forces to Cena to survive 12 rounds of death traps in order to get her back.

It’s nice to see that Cena will actually talk once or twice in this picture, and there seems to be more than enough action to overcome the film’s shortcomings. Still, the marketing troubles me. The first couple lines in the movie trailer are poorly edited, and the trailer proceeds to give away way too many details of the plot.

What do you think of 12 Rounds?

What happens when you put Jesus, Vikings and a dragon together? You get Outlander, the new sci-fi action flick that opens this coming Friday in limited theaters. Its limited release, combined with its January date and not-so-big distributor (doesn’t Third Rail Releasing sound like Third Rate?) does not bode well for the picture, but it looks like given the right marketing and distribution, Outlander could make a bit of money.

Sure, it looks like it could end up being rather cheesy, put the special effects don’t look awful, it stars Jim Caviezel and the thought of Vikings battling a dragon sounds like a lot of fun. The new movie trailer does nothing that screams “horrible” – had this same trailer been advertising a June release date, I’d potentially think it was a blockbuster film. Alas, it is not, and it most likely will suck, but Outlander looks fun.

Here’s the Outlander movie trailer:

Below, watch the movie trailer for the upcoming action film Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which comes to theaters this February. The trailer is rather unimpressive, though it wisely attempts to avoid looking like a video game adaptation as much it can. The cast is recognizable but not filled with A-listers by any mean, but what bugs me is that the trailer does so little to tell me what the movie is about or get me excited about it. By the time the trailer gets to its action montage, there needed to have been proper build-up – and that is just entirely missing.

Then again, this still looks heaps better than the upcoming Dragonball movie.

Here’s the Street Fighter movie trailer:

Jason Statham returns in the sequel no one wanted: Crank: High Voltage. In the movie, hitman Chev Chelios’ (Statham) launches himself on an electrifying chase through Los Angeles in pursuit of the Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart. How Chev comes back to life after falling out of an airplane is anyone’s guess.

The first promo trailer – an R-rated promo trailer – for Crank 2 is now online at YouTube. Check it out: