Trailer Weekend: Cowboys & Aliens and Three More

You might have seen some of these films attached to new movies these past couple of weeks. With the increased business movie theaters get this time of year, more new trailers are popping up every day. I’ve selected a few of the highlights/films most buzzed about.

We start with Jon Favreau’s second major action film after the “Iron Man” movies, “Cowboys & Aliens” starring Daniel Craig. We then move to “The Source Code,” a sci-fi thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke’s dark romantic vision for the Little Red Riding Hood story featuring Amanda Seyfried and lastly a medieval modern stoner comedy, “Your Highness.”

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Cowboys & Aliens

Jon Favreau, always a fan favorite, dropped some of this footage of his new sci fi/western comic adaptation at Comic Con and now it debuts as part of the first trailer. Daniel Craig stars as Jake Lonergan, a man who wakes up with a strange bracelet and no recollection of who he is, but he’s definitely wanted in Silver City, Arizona. When aliens attack the town, the bracelet turns into a high-tech weapon that apparently holds the key to stopping this alien force.

When you see the footage, you’ll quickly get over the kitschy-sounding title. (It will also help if you think of it as a play on “Cowboys & Indians.”) To put some context into why a July 29, 2011 film already has a trailer (this one being the furthest away of any film that we’ve actually seen footage from), consider this: July 2011 also boasts “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2,” and “Captain America: The First Avenger.” All of them come out before this one and all have more general public recognition than this film. I’d want a head start too.

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Source Code

Many people were super-impressed with Duncan Jones’ feature film debut, “Moon.” I was not among them. Rarely do my opinions counter general opinion, but I found the film a bit too unmemorable, never quite “getting there” in terms of story. But I certainly saw promise in Jones and think he’ll only get better.

His next chance is with Jake Gyllenhaal in “Source Code” about a military man in a computer program that sticks him in the body of someone in the last eight minutes of that person’s life. The reason he’s in the source code is purely to determine who blew up a commuter train in Chicago, so he’s being inserted into a “living crime scene.” Though tasked only with the job of discovering the bomber (he can’t actually change what happened, according to Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright), he is taken by the woman his character knows on the train (Michelle Monaghan) and wants to stop the accident from happening.

I’m definitely exciting to jump into the “Source Code” on April 15.

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Red Riding Hood

What do you get when you mix the story of Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf with “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke? Exactly what you’re thinking you’ll get, fully equipped with the line “I’m wrong for you.” Although I was curious to see what a modern vision for the classic story would entail, this trailer has turned me off almost entirely, but I will judge no further, even though everything about the marketing of this film so far screams “Twilight” wannabe — and for good reason.

The plot synopsis says a girl falls for an orphaned woodcutter much to the chagrin of her family. If I had to guess from the teaser, however, I would say the woodcutter is the wolf  (a werewolf, of course) and that it’s more than social class that makes him wrong for her. I think Gary Oldman’s village leader character sends her through the forest as bait to catch the wolf though it’s the man she loves and she doesn’t know it. Just a guess. Find out March 11.

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Your Highness

Why hasn’t anyone come up with the medieval stoner comedy concept before? Beats me. This red band trailer for “Your Highness” from “Pineapple Express” director David Gordon Green starring Danny McBride (“Eastbound & Down”) and James Franco among others puts a “Monty Python” accent on modern humor … or just plain swearing and dick jokes.

Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel also star in an epic hybrid of fantasy action and comedy, sure to please anyone — sober or not — with a dirty mind.