Latest Movie Trailers (08/02/12)

This week’s round-up of the best new trailers is bursting at the seams with thrillers and action films, including superhero romp The Avengers, and dystopian sci-fi The Hunger Games.

7500

From Takashi Shimizu (director of spine-chilling Japanese film Ju-On/The Grudge) comes 7500, the creepy tale of Vista Pacific flight 7500 from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Backed by a spookily slow version of John Denver’s hit song Leaving On A Jet Plane, the trailer shows a series of passengers embarking on what appears to be a perfectly normal transpacific flight. Soon, the captain announces that they will be experiencing a small amount of normal turbulence – unfortunately, this turbulence turns out to be anything but normal, as plane and passengers are violently rocked by some kind of supernatural force. Master of suspense Shimizu, who directed both the original Japanese and US remake versions of The Grudge, will hopefully be on top form with this thrilling horror.

The Avengers

Joss ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Whedon, is at the helm of The Avengers, the latest superhero flick to come out of the Marvel factory. The Avengers will unite superheroes from across the comic book canon; Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Incredible Hulk are brought together in order to combat Thor’s brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) who is intent on conquering and ruling planet Earth. Many familiar faces will show up in the Avengers, including Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts whilst Samuel L Jackson will play Nick Fury, a representative of the international agency S.H.I.E.L.D. With so many superheroes thrown together in one action movie, the results are sure to be explosive.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

The latest G.I. Joe sequel sees the Joes betrayed by their own government as Cobra spy Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) has them all assassinated. It’s up to the remaining Joes to take revenge for their fallen brothers while also attempting to defeat the Cobras, who are now in control of all the world leaders and busily aiming nuclear warheads at various innocent countries. This is the third film in the recent G.I. Joe series, but it almost certainly won’t be the last; even though Retaliation looks to be a stereotypical tale of bloody vengeance upon betraying masters, it is still one of this year’s most highly anticipated action films (the presence of action veteran Bruce Willis as Joe Colton is definitely exciting interest).

The Cold Light of Day

Bruce Willis pops up again on our list this week in action spy thriller The Cold Light of Day. What starts out as a relaxing family holiday in Spain suddenly turns into a nightmare for Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) who returns to the yacht one day to find his entire family have been kidnapped. He finds out that his father Martin (Willis) is not actually a ‘government business consultant’ as he has been telling everyone, but a CIA operative; Will must take on his father’s role in the fight to get his family back. Sigourney Weaver plays another mysterious CIA operative who claims to want to help Will, but can she be trusted, or is she a part of the conspiracy?

The Hunger Games

In the near future America has collapsed under pressure from droughts, raging wildfires and lack of food. It is now called Panem, a country split up into twelve districts. In order to further terrify and dominate the populace, every year one boy and one girl are chosen from each district by random lottery, to fight to the death on national television. A young woman named Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to take her sister’s place in the games, where she will be forced to fight other young people until a winner emerges. Although it is based on a trilogy of young adult novels by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games appears to draw much of its inspiration from the Japanese series Battle Royale, in which a dystopian government selects a random class of teenage schoolchildren who are then secluded on an island and forced to fight to the death. Still, The Hunger Games, an unusually emotive action sci-fi, looks to be an interesting new take on the idea.