We’re told the highlight of this weekend’s MTV Awards was Rebel Wilson enthusiastically reprising her smooch with Adam DeVine from Pitch Perfect 2 after winning the coveted “best kiss” prize. But there was also the small matter of new trailers for three of this year’s most heavily anticipated films: the much-hyped Suicide Squad, the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and the latest Marvel superhero flick Civil War. Here are five takeways that left us all breathless and flustered.
Oh my. @MTV #MovieAwards https://t.co/NhAhIywCZz pic.twitter.com/deIy6imkC4
— GIPHY (@giphy) April 11, 2016
Those rumoured Suicide Squad reshoots have already done the trick
According to fan site Birth.Movies.Death, the suits at Warner Bros were thrilled by the positive reaction to the lunatic debut trailer for David Ayer’s supervillain epic, then suddenly panicked as they realised it had used up all the good jokes. So they ordered reshoots to make with the extra funnies.
Whether that’s true – and Ayer has gone on record to say the extra shooting time was to add extra action rather than jokes – the new promo is chock full of knockabout silliness, most of it from Margot Robbie’s vicious little New Yoik scream queen Harley Quinn, who seems to be stealing hearts and scenes in equal measures. This time around, the Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz is slipped on to the boombox in place of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, and why not? Superheroes and 70s rockers are such obvious bedfellows that it’s a wonder nobody has resurrected Freddie Mercury as Glam Man (superpowers: the ability to stop hearts with a wiggle of his bottom).
Harley Quinn could be the honey trap in the Joker’s battle with Batman
Speaking of rebirths, previous trailers have shown Jared Leto’s Joker apparently bringing Quinn back from the dead via some sort of Lazarus Pit. Now we get a closer look at the clown prince of Gotham’s battle with Batman, and it looks like he’s using his beloved belle to entrap the Dark Knight. Will this be a prelude to the main event, with the resurrected Harley jailed for her part in the scam, then let out to wreak havoc as part of the black ops Suicide Squad? Or is Ayer planning to retell Quinn’s origins story from Batman: The Animated Series, which saw a diligent but naive psychiatrist known as Harley Quinzel seduced by the Joker and transformed into the ultimate supervillain sidekick?
Either way, it now seems certain that Leto isn’t part of the main mission, which will apparently involve taking down some kind of “enigmatic, insuperable entity”. Let’s just hope they don’t import Doomsday from that other DC Comics movie. Speaking of which …
It looks absolutely nothing like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
There’s still a chance that Ayer could hit us with a final scene of Zack Snyder-style CGI mega-carnage. Yet so far Suicide Squad looks like it might just eschew all that digital destruction in favour of a core built round brilliantly bombastic banter: the team certainly seem to be spending as much time boozing it up as they are battling the enemy. With luck the new movie, out in August, might act as something of a hangover cure for those still suffering from battered cerebellums after sitting through two and a half hours of Batman v Superman.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’s Newt Scamander shares more than an author with Harry Potter
The new trailer for JK Rowling’s 20s-set wizarding world Potter prequel reveals that Eddie Redmayne’s swashbuckling magizoologist is another former favourite of one Albus Dumbledore, albeit a version of the famous Hogswarts headmaster 70 years younger than the white-bearded mage seen in Rowling’s series of novels. Might we get to see the new Dumbledore on screen in some sort of flashback to Scamander’s schooldays, when it appears he was expelled for messing around with nasty beasties? Is that Fawkes the Phoenix speeding through the New York streets? And what other creatures does the wizard have in his marvellous briefcase? One thing’s for sure, it appears to be kitted out as more than just a Tardis-like receptacle for illicit magical species.
Team Cap is going to take some beating in Captain America: Civil War
Age of Ultron left us with a pretty green-looking Avengers lineup, but a new clip from the Russo brothers’ movie suggests Steve Rogers has spent the intervening time getting his troops into slick synthesis. Chris Evans’s Captain America combines superbly with Elisabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and Anthony Mackie’s Falcon to take down a team of special forces types defending a building, though to be fair it doesn’t seem like much of a fair fight. The real showdown will take place when Team Cap take on Robert Downey Jr’s Team Iron Man in a comic book battle royale that’s already being described as the year’s best superhero flick on social media by those who’ve seen it. We’re also told that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has a much bigger role than expected. Let the battle commence …
I honestly don't know how Civil War works. There's so much going on but it does. Spidey is AMAZING. Made me smile & laugh till my face hurt
— Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
We have seen 'Captain America: Civil War' and it's incredible. #CaptainAmericaCivilWar
— UPROXX (@UPROXX) April 9, 2016
It's not perfect... But it's far better than #Ultron & #BvS Every character gets a proper moment AND.We meet a great #SpiderMan #CivilWar
— Andy Signore (@andysignore) April 9, 2016
The movie is bigger in scale than WINTER SOLDIER but is so much more personal. The stakes are incredibly emotional.
— devin faraci (@devincf) April 9, 2016
