‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ Trailer

UK Release Date: 13th December 2013

Stars: Peter Jackson (director), Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Luke Evans, Cate Blanchett, Evangeline Lilly, Richard Armitage, Hugo Weaving, Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Stephen Fry

Plot: The Dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf have successfully escaped the Misty Mountains, and Bilbo has gained the One Ring. They all continue their journey to get their gold back from the Dragon, Smaug.

The new Middle Earth trilogy began last year with An Unexpected Journey which, in my opinion, came nowhere close to touching the Lord of the Rings films and could have been a lot better, the slow pace at which events unravelled being the most alarming concern. However, it built a nice platform for the next films to advance on.

With this trailer it certainly looks as though things will be a bit more action heavy and faster paced. We get glimpses of fight scenes, the reappearance of Legolas and completely new character Tauriel (although how much fans of the source material will like her remains to be seen) and we’re also treated (or not) to seeing pretty much every character in the film jumping.

I think I do watch this trailer with a lot of cynicism, I felt hugely let down when watching An Unexpected Journey because it was so far apart from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The CGI here used for Smaug as well does not look as good as it should do in this kind of big budget movie.

I hope that upon release I am proved wrong and that Smaug looks great and the film will be exciting and action packed! It probably says a lot for this trailer that the most exciting thing, for me, was the return of Orland Bloom. And when that’s exciting, you know things are bad.

Tom Cruise in ‘Oblivion’ Trailer

UK Release Date: 12th April 2013

Stars: Joseph Kosinski (director), Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Melissa Leo, Zoe Bell

Plot: On a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man’s confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind.

After playing Jack Reacher, Tom Cruise will next star as Jack Harper in Oblivion. As much as I like Tom Cruise, and I am a big fan of his, I can’t help but think after watching this trailer that he might be a little bit miscast.

Oblivion is a big budget science fiction film and although Cruise seems to be getting his career back on track it is a risk having him in the lead role I think. And on top of that, the film doesn’t even really look like anything special. A few forums have already seen people theorising about the big plot twist and you can see some very obvious things being debated and you just know that they’re going to stick a cliche end on Oblivion.

The trailer does ask enough questions to get a few people interested. What happened to Earth? Who was the war between? Who and what is Morgan Freeman’s character doing on a supposed desolate Earth with what seems like a whole colony of people? And who is that women that Tom Cruise is shouting “who are you?” at. Good question, Tom.