G.I. Dull

I complained that in the last batch of posters the characters in G.I. Joe all looked the same. Well, in this poster a much better job is done of distinguishing the bad guys from the good guys. The good guys are surrounded by blue flames and background. The bad guys are surrounded by red flames and background. I think. I mean, that is the tradition, right? Though hey all look like bad guys too me.

Considering that the character design in this movie is apparently very dull I wish they had gone with some action posters, showcasing some interesting backgrounds and battle sequences. But no, all the posters are squarely focused on the characters. Not sure that was a great choice.

(Via IMPAwards)

The Hangover has Many Posters

Let this be a lesson to all the kids out there: sure, that face tattoo looks narly now. But once you grow older, pudgier and much less threatening it will look very very silly.

It will probably help the poster for that film you have a small part in stand out more though.

In general a like all these little posters for minor characters from the film. As a general rule these types of characters in comedies have to be quickly memorable for something, so the odds of they working as a poster seem high.

And who can not love a poster featuring pretty much just a chicken?

(Via TrailerAddict)

Because I Have Been too Busy to do a Proper Post.. And Because Lego is Fun

21 Movie Posters Recreated with Lego

and

Video Games Poster Mash-Up (as well as several other poster mash-ups)

Feels Like Christmas

This poster for A Christmas Carol hits just the perfect balance between seeming like a hundred posters you have seen before and still having enough fresh elements to appear modern. Which is exactly as it should be.

Obviously you can’t have a poster that makes the film seem like something straight from the 80’s. And yet a big part of Christmas is that warm feeling of tradition, so you want to hit that as hard as you can, especially in something that is a new version of a many times retold story.

And on that note, here are some other Christmas Carol posters. The one for the Muppets has to be my favorite (artwork by Drew Struzan!).

(Via IMPAwards, Movieposter.com, MovieGoods)

When Close-Ups Attack

Johnny Depp is a very charming fellow with a very expressive face which is normally endlessly entertaining to watch. And yet in this posters I don’t quite get the intriguing sense of danger that was quite clearly emanating from his character in the poster below.

Sure, part of that can be attributed to a more felicitous choice of facial expression. But it is also the case that sometimes less (close-up) is more. Sometimes characters need room tho breath, to convey things with their bodies, to be in their environment.

This is, of course, another aspect of why the floating heads convention grates.

(Via Kinopoisk and IMPAwards)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Poster

A quick perusal of my posts about the first Transformers informs me the I actually liked its posters much less than I remembered. But there were at least a couple of very good ones. And I was very interested in seeing each and every one of the posters, and was happy to analyze them to death.

The poster campaign for Revenge of the Fallen on the other hand has mostly left me cold. I don’t hate it in any way, but it just failed completely to pick up my interest. The sole exception was the first poster, which was a pretty decent teaser and got me to read a lot about the film, something a hadn’t done up to that point.

A big part of the loss of appeal is that we have now seen the giant robots during one whole film. So seeing a still photo of them doesn’t exactly excite. The pyramid background doesn’t help either. It’s just trying too hard to make the film look like it will have new, exotic and exciting elements. And the pyramids, although awesome, have been exposed to the point where they are no longer immediately impressive by themselves.

In a similar vein there is too much work being put in making the robots look battered up. I guess the idea is to make us believe they have just gone through intense action, but the main effect is to make the poster look uglier and more somber than it needs to be.

As it happens I was watching bits of the first film this weekend. Transformers are cool. The posters are doing a bad job of reminding us of that. And a bad job of making the case for the new things in the sequel.

But then again, not terrible at all. And the movie comes pretty much pre-sold, so probably no harm done.

(Via IMPAwards)

Important Animation Posters

First up, Up. Not much new in the poster to look at, but doesn’t the title seem much more chirpy and joyful in french?

Second , Ponyo, the American version, which is somewhat cleaner and more focused than some others (not ALWAYS a good thing, I should add). And more importantly, reminds me that the film will only be released in the U.S. on August, over an year after it was released on Japan.

(Via IMPAwards)

Pandorum Explained

So taking this poster and the last poster in consideration I can say that Pandorum is about having various tubes inserted all over your body. It’s nice when the posters clearly tells you what to expect from a movie.

Another plus: very consistent visual identity. Pandorum is THE tubes in body movie.

(Via IMPAwards)

Dinosaurs!!!

Ice Age is here again, and it brings us … dinosaurs. And mammoths that float around using on giant slabs of ice.

This a very weird Ice Age indeed.

When you have a sequel to a popular film the desire to do a poster that looks kind of similar to a previous poster but WITH MORE STUFF can be quite strong. Overwhelming even. So it’s no surprise we have seen a French poster not entirely dissimilar to this one before. However, as understandable as that can be, it rarely ever leads to great posters. Sometimes it even leads to some really bad ones.

But the Ice Age franchise has always coupled some uninspired posters with some very interesting ones. And the best poster for Ice Age 3 has probably already been released. So I’m not specially concerned that this isn’t a very good poster.

(Via IMPAwards)