This is the first trailer for Dreamworks animation’s next movie, How to Train Your Dragon, opening March 26th, from co-directors Dean Dubois and Chris Sanders, who previously did Lilo & Stitch. I’ll give DW a little credit for creativity for this time, because it least it’s not about a Chinese Panda or a Mexican Chihuahua or an Australian kangaroo. That said, Jay Baruchel seems to be trying extra hard to annoy me as the voice of the lead. His aggressively average, schlubby everydouche character was already wearing thin the first time he did it and he seems to be laying it on extra thick here. I don’t get it, why do they keep putting this character in movies? It’s not interesting and it sure as hell isn’t likable. I’d take a pedophile or an arsonist over this boring jagoff any day. Are we supposed to identify with this guy? Because I have an overwhelming urge to pull his underwear over his head and push his head in the toilet. What we should do is put the Jay Baruchel character on an ice flow with Kevin James and Kenneth from 30 Rock and nudge it towards Antarctica.
[available in HD at Yahoo]
Nic Cage, Jay Baruchel, and some sort of shirtless Indian tranny were shooting scenes for Jerry Bruckheimer’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in New York yesterday, and this guy was able to get some set pictures. My favorite Nic Cage movie cliché is how he’s always somehow supposed to be incognito, and always blends in like a clown wearing stilts with a dildo on his forehead. Can you believe this is the same guy who once won an Oscar?
The beauty of Nic Cage is that when I heard he’d be playing the lead in Jerry Bruckheimer’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, this is pretty much exactly what I expected. And yet, upon seeing the first pictures I still almost spit coffee on my screen. It’s like The Matrix with Downs Syndrome.
(I also added a picture of Cage’s son. Not because he’s in this, but because he should be).
[more pictures at spoilertv]
Jay Baruchel has signed on to star in Johnny Klutz, about “a lovable loser who’s impervious to pain,” for Waiting writer-director Rob McKittrick (sounds like direct-to-DVD material). I bring it up only because Jay Baruchel seems to get cast in everything now and it’s bugging me. Much like Kenneth from 30 Rock (but admittedly, less annoying) he’s had extremely minor parts in solid ensemble comedy casts (Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder), and now he gets cast as that same character in everything. Do execs really think 30 Rock is funny because of the annoying stupid virgin guy, or that Tropic Thunder was funny because of the nerdy average guy? Because it wasn’t. It was funny because of Robert Downey Jr. in blackface. That I could watch a few more times. This is like a doing an SNL spinoff about Melanie Hutsell.
I’ve hated Jerry Bruckheimer for so long that sometimes I wonder, “Hey, isn’t it about time to start pretending to like him ironically now?” One would think. But it’s projects like this that make it impossible to pretend. Here’s the rundown:
Title: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Starring: Nic Cage as the Sorcerer, Jay Baruchel as his apprentice [Let me repeat that for emphasis: NIC CAGE AS A SORCERER. Run for your lives, it's the enchanted forehead!]
Director: John Turtletaub, of National Treasure fame
Writers: Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal. Credits include: Superman IV, the 2001 Planet of the Apes remake.
Script rewrite by: Matt Lopez. Credits include: Bedtime Stories, Race to Witch Mountain
The Rundown: a live-action reimagining of Fantasia, set in contemporary New York, where a wizard searches for an apprentice. [Variety]
Well at least it’s a contemporary sorcerer. I mean, this can’t be your grandma’s warlock. This necromancer, he’ll really need to connect with today’s youth. Could he be an XXXtreme Wizard? A rap-metal conjurer? A hip-hop magician, perhaps? Ahh, Suckheimer. No one else can so consistently undershoot the lowest common denominator.
