We have a NEW-er Spirit movie trailer out now, and...

...and I think I like it.

My previous post here was some months ago and concerned my dissapointment with the teaser trailer that was released for the Spirit movie back in late April 2008. In short, I felt that the trailer then was too choppy and messy, that it borrowed a bit too heavily from the look of Sin City (also a Frank Miller project), and that it made abad choice in backing music by using the theme from the Untouchables, because it made it seem less original. Since that time all we really got was another, admittedly longer, trailer which basically featured all of the female supporting cast from the movie to get across the idea that the spirit is all about the ladies. Well if that is not the message they were trying to get out there - sorry, that's the message they put out. At least it included a nice series of shots of Samuel Jackson as the Spirit's nemesis, the Octopus.

For those that missed it, here it is below.




Okay, enough with that. the big news here folks is that Lionsgate finally released a full trailer for the upcoming Spirit movie. And equally important (at least for me) is the fact that I actually liked this one!

Before I go on too far, here is the new, longer, trailer. (BTW, it is also being touted as the NEW 3rd trailer)





Okay, let me rattle off the reasons that I am happier with this new trailer than I am with the previous ones. For the record, it is not just about the length of the trailers, the teaser trailers for the Dark Knight movie and the Watchmen movie were both very, very effective in conveying their respective messages to their prospective audiences and did so with disciplined length. No this is more an issue of not achieving your objective with your chosen promotional medium: you want to help start the buzz building by releasing a teaser trailer that gets the fanboys (and girls) talking positively about the few moments of celluloid that they have all just witnessed together in a darkened room. I believe that the reports out there will back me up on the suggestion that the first Spirit trailer didn't meet its objectives. Length has nothing to do with it.

This new trailer really hits the marks much better than before; the first trailer failed to establish any sense of character, this one does. The characters of the Spirit and his nemesis, the Octopus are both fleshed out somewhat. I am starting to get a feel for how Gabriel Macht, who plays the Spirit, is going to come across in the film. He has a personality in this movie - at least I gleaned that from the trailer. The environment of the movie is also pretty effectively established and it didn't feel so much like the Sin City universe as it did in the first two trailers. As well, the fight scenes in the trailer are intriguingly comic-booky in nature. This might not seem very surprising or a big deal, but in today's reality obsessed violence in comic book movies, I don't recall anything very cartoony in its violence since maybe, the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie back in the early nineties.

The backing music for the new trailer is similar or reminiscent to the Sin City soundtrack but at least it is more original than using the Untouchables piece.

What really matters, I guess, is that the latest trailer for Frank Miller's upcoming Spirit movie has me interested in actually seeing the movie, whereas the earlier trailers failed to do this for me, and hey - isn't that ultimately what movie trailers are all about?