On any given week, studios are pushing their films by releasing exciting trailers and five of the best ones would make it here onto Trailers Weekly. However with the holiday break, studios have not released any new trailers. So what better time than now to unveil my top ten favorite trailers of 2012. As you may know, every weekend, we post the most talked about trailers of the week, and with 2012 just days away from coming to a close, everyone is releasing their top 10 whatevers. So since I bare the responsibility of bringing you the most talked about trailers, I am picked these ten as the top ten best trailers of 2012.
10 – The Sound Of My Voice
Haunting, scaring, chilling, but is it all real, or is it just a facade created by Maggie, a woman who easily manipulates people into believing that she comes from the future. Such is the premise for The Sound of My Voice. The trailer shows us two documentarians who infiltrate a cult lead by Maggie, a hooded woman, who says she comes from the year 2054. Soon we see one of them becoming more involved with the cult than he originally intended to be, and we start to beleive that she may be from the future. But his partner still has her doubts. So is Maggie from the future or is she the world’s biggest liar?
9 – The Raid: Redemption
One of the most exciting action films of the year was The Raid: Redemption – not too fond of the additional subtitle. The trailer highlighted the ferocity of a police officer willing to risk it all just to make it out alive from a 30 story building filled with the city’s most dangerous criminals. There is no need to get into specifics for this film, just tell it like it is, and what the film is, is an all out action flick. The thing that you didn’t see in this trailer were a few details to the plot that reveals there is much more to this than we are lead to believe.
8 – Zero Dark Thirty
Kathryn Bigelow’s daring proect that follows the events of Seal Team 6’s daring venture into darkness which brought down the world’s most wanted man. The first trailer didn’t quite have the impact that I was hoping it would have. Maybe perhaps it was because it was a teaser, but this full theatrical trailer brought the point home. It has a perfect tone, and everything about it had me wanting to see more, which is what a trailer is suppose to do.
7 – Great Gatsby
It is a party the moment the trailer starts. But that is just Baz Luhrmann’s style. The trailer is pumped full of energy, color, passion, and music. Lets not forget the amazing looking set pieces! But while there is a party going on, everyone wants to know who this great Gatsby is? How does he live so extravagantly? What secrets does he have? I am every interested into seeing how all of this works in 3D. All in all this very flashy trailer won its way into my heart.
6 – Looper
By far one of the most exciting and oringial movies of 2012. The thought of using time traveling assinations is one thing, but to have a hit put out on your future self is another. Not only did the trailer put some pretty intense action on display, but we also got to see some of the masterful makeup work used to make Joseph Gordon Levitt look like Bruce Willis. The trailer for Rian Johnson’s film did an excellent job setting up the premise of the story. In just a few seconds we learn who loopers are, what happens if they fail to do their job, and the inner conflicts of a looper. Just a great trailer overall.
5 – Cloud Atlas
The longest trailer on our top ten and perhaps the longest trailer to be released in the history of trailers. Clocking in at nearly five minutes, the trailer for Cloud Atlas gave us an in depth look at The Wachoswki Siblings and Tom Twitiwkier’s ambitious task of putting together a film that consists of six interwoven stories that spans multiple generations and using the same actors to play multiple roles. The trailer cleared up any preconceived confusion one might have had about the film by focusing on the fundamental idea that we inherit the love, crimes, and accomplishments of our previous lives and we pass that on our future. The film may not have been a commercial success, but it was a cult hit.
4 – Iron Man 3
What would happen after the events in New York that occurred in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. Well Shane Black will answer that in Iron Man 3. Earlier this year, a teaser trailer of sorts was released, and boy does it set the precedents in a very big way. It is a very dark trailer and in fact there are no signs of heroism, just a villain succeeded in what he believes in: that there are no such thing as heroes. There isn’t really anything else to say, but if that shot of Tony Stark’s home and Iron Man HQ crumbling into the ocean floor is one of the epic scenes in the film, i wonder what else Black has in store for us.
3 – Django Unchained
Exciting, energetic, witty, and mildly racist, lets fact it, it can only be the work of the great Quentin Tarantino. The trailer was just vibrant and just was gushing full of exciting cinematic power. Tarantino’s long-awaited western had it all, and surpassed all my expectations the moment the trailer started. Everyone in the film obviously brought their A-game, but just by looking at the trailer, you knew that this was something special.
2 – The Master
One of the best films in 2012 had a lot to do with this trailer. The ominous tone, Jonny Greenwood’s latest ingenious musical endeavor, and the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson basically did nothing to tell us what this movie was about – even though most of us suspected it was based primarily on Scientology. We see very brief clips of the downward spiral that is Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) and during that time we can only imagine what this film would look like in 70mm.
1 – The Avengers
What do I have to say, the ultimate superhero team lived up to the hype. Not only that, but the trailers did everything to set that hype up. Every major Marvel super hero film has led up to this point and because of this film, we can finally look back and be happy to see that Joss Whedon didn’t need to make a superhero dark and gritty or cheesy and campy, he showed us that with some balance and great knowledge of the material, superhero films can be fun.
