Trailer Wednesday: Beastly Grown Ups

Two films with vastly different target audiences get featured this week — a fairly slow week for new trailers. The first is supernatural teen romance “Beastly,” a modern re-telling of the classic Beauty and the Beast story. The second is Adam Sandler comedy “Grown Ups” starring a handful of his comedian friends.

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Beastly

CBS Films gives the first crack at finding the next “Twilight” with “Beastly,” a modern teen spin on Beauty and the Beast based on the novel by Alex Flinn. CBS even went as far as casting a British actor in Alex Pettyfer (“Stormbreaker”) alongside an American female lead in “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens. If that’s not good enough, try Mary-Kate Olsen as the goth chick that curses the popular boy Kyle, a hex that results in random lines popping out of his skin as if a giant with gym shoes on stepped on his face. Needless to say, “Beastly” will not get an Oscar nod for Best Make Up.

Everything from the cliche trailer to the promotional materials makes “Beastly” look like a glorified CW teen drama TV series, but to be fair, the acting could be better than expected. Hudgens received a lot of praise for her dramatic work on last summer’s “Bandslam” despite the film receiving hardly any promotion. For supernatural romance fans still in a hangover after “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” comes out this summer, “Beastly” lands one month later on July 30.

Watch the Beastly trailer on YouTube

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Grown Ups

The second trailer for Adam Sandler’s  nostalgia man-comedy “Grown Ups” about five middle-aged pals reuniting for the first time in 30 years and meeting each other’s deranged family members hit the net last week and the new footage manages to improve my expectations, even if the climactic joke involves peeing. Hey, some of Sandler’s best comedy has involved peeing — we’ve all been Miles Davis at some point.

If you haven’t heard the buzz on “Grown Ups,” it essentially puts its trust in comedic strength in numbers. The film stars Sandler along with regular pals Rob Schneider, Kevin James, David Spade and Chris Rock. Recent Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan (“I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”) directs. Fortunately for Happy Madison, the movie does have a much wider appeal than previous efforts such as “Chuck and Larry” and “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.”

Watch the Grown Ups trailer on YouTube