The Trailer Park: Escaping the Furnace

This week’s trailers are for movies I wouldn’t automatically consider “highly anticipated.” Nevertheless, they appear pretty promising, especially the latest from the versatile Christian Bale. Stallone and Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, bring the action in a plot better suited for DTV material.

‘Escape Plan’

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone co-star (as in, both are the headlining main attraction) together for the first-time. The two aging action stars play old prisoners in the world’s toughest, most escape-proof prison ever devised. The Austrian-born muscle giant is a career criminal itching for a way out, whereas the snarling, steroid-fueled New Yorker is a career escape artist betrayed by a mysterious client. What’s not to love in this prison-break scenario guaranteed to bring tons of excessive, over-the-top action thrills? Well, the plot sounds like direct-to-video ridiculousness and the trailer does nothing to suggest otherwise. Admit it, the only reason you’d watch this possible turd is for Stallone and Schwarzenegger on the same screen.

‘Out of the Furnace’

When the Pearl Jam song “Release” plays in the background, I’m instantly sucked into the preview for this sure-to-be powerhouse of a drama. There’s a great, trance-like rhythm to the way the trailer is edited together, lulling you into a dark plot about family and revenge with incredibly fascinating characters. I love stories about everyday, average working class people struggling to survive the daily drudge of our existence, and none are usually as powerful as those places hit hardest by weak economies. Produced by Ridley & Tony Scott and Leonard DiCaprio, the film is right up my alley. It looks pretty intense, with another amazing performance from Christian Bale.

‘Seventh Son’

This one looks and sounds like a combination of ‘The Seventh Seal‘ and ‘The Seventh Sign’ with gobs of CGI magic borrowed from ‘Season of the Witch‘. The action fantasy spectacle is the latest from Sergei Bodrov, director of the sadly underrated ‘Mongol‘. Not to be confused with the identically titled book by Orson Scott Card, which is very confusing indeed, the movie is an adaptation of the first novel in ‘The Wardstone Chronicles’ by Joseph Delaney. Jeff Bridges once again plays a surly old man speaking in raspy, garbled slurs that are sometimes unintelligible. Julianne Moore, we quickly gather, is the overtly wicked yet oozing with sex appeal baddie we’re meant to love and hate all at once. The preview makes this look like it could be lots of fun, but with a release date set in January, the time when studios dump all sorts of crap, I think I’ll play it safe and wait for the Blu-ray.

For more of the latest movie trailers, check out our trailers page.

1 comment

  1. Jason

    aww a Stallone/Schwarzenegger prison movie. for a second there I was hoping for a remake of the “classic” 80’s aging criminals flick Tough Guys starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. But I guess Stallone/Schwarzenegger are still too young to pull off the role of train robbers that have been sitting in prison for 50 years…

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