SDCC Leaks, Hits, And Misses!

Not In San Diego

I’ve never attended San Diego Comic Con.  I’ll probably never make it to the convention unless I get an invite or one of my many, many stories gets picked up for a film (a guy can hope), but I do look forward to the photos, videos, and articles about the event each year that friends and others share on the web and in person.

This year’s event featured three big sneak peeks and one that was pulled from the web before I could see it.  Warner Brothers coughed up looks at the highly anticipated Batman Vs. Superman and another DC property that hasn’t garnered as much attention (but I think it will now), Suicide Squad.  Fox offered a glimpse at Deadpool, a film that has been begged for for many years by the Merc with a Mouth’s biggest fans, and X-Men:  Apocalypse, which I’m sure will be a very good film based on the strength of the two previous films (First Class and Days of Future Past).  Unfortunately the sneak peek that was offered for Apocalypse has been pulled from the web, so I won’t have anything to say about it until Fox makes the official trailer release.

So, let’s take a look at each trailer (except for Deadpool, which was apparently pulled except for the bootleg video) that I have managed to see and then I’ll post a few comments about each one.

Batman Vs. Superman

A lot of people, myself included, cringed at the first brief tease of Batman Vs. Superman whenever Warner Brothers and DC presented it at last year’s SDCC.  Batman was laughed at for looking like a LEGO figure and people were talking about how Batman/Bruce Wayne was going to be terrible because Ben Affleck was cast in the role.  Also, Man of Steel didn’t draw as much positive heat as Warner and DC had hoped for, and with the announcement that Jesse Eisenberg would be portraying Lex Luthor in the new flick, things looked pretty bad for the Bats/Supes face off……until now.

Although there isn’t much revealed in the new trailer, we do get to see a whole lot more than what has been offered up to this point.  Ben Affleck looks like he’s comfortable in the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Jesse Eisenberg (despite just a few brief seconds in the trailer) looks like he’ll be just fine as Luthor.

I have to admit that of all of the trailers I’ve seen from SDCC, I’m most excited for Batman Vs. Superman.

Suicide Squad

While big DC fans are no strangers to the excellent Suicide Squad books, the general movie-viewing audience isn’t familiar with them at all.  Sure, even casual DC fans know about Harley Quinn, and everybody knows about the Joker, but how well will characters like Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Enchantress, and even Killer Croc, translate onto the big screen?  I had my doubts, but after seeing the trailer (including Jared Leto’s inked and grilled Joker), I’m pretty pumped up for this flick.  I’m sure that there will be plenty of naysayers for the film regardless of how well it does in the theaters, but I’ve just got a really good feeling about this movie.

Deadpool

Go ahead and watch the bootleg if you want, it’s pretty good, but I am not that impressed.  Plenty of fanboys headed for social media to whoop and wail over the wonder that is Ryan Reynolds as their favorite mercenary, but all I saw was Reynolds channeling his old (and wretched) Hannibal King from the only Blade flick I hate, Trinity.  I have yet to be that impressed with Reynolds as an action star.  I didn’t like him in X-Men Origins:  Wolverine or as Hal Jordan in Green Lantern.  Sure, neither of those films was that great, but I feel that a better actor could have done a better job with the material had they been given the chance.

I’ll hold my judgment off until I see the film (and you all know I’m going to see it), but expectations are pretty low.

So, there’s my opinion on the big reveals at SDCC.  Do ya agree?  Disagree? Lemme know!!!!