ShoWest: Universal!

Universal held a presentation at ShoWest to highlight their 2008 offerings and while we’re already brought you a wrap-up of the WANTED footage, here’s a round-up of some of the other offerings they were pimpin. [To note, they did show off THE INCREDIBLE HULK and FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL but only showed trailers that are available online so I won’t recap them here.]

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY

We were treated to the final trailer for HELLBOY II and let me tell you it blows the original trailer out of the water. Not that I didn’t enjoy the first trailer but this one was very impressive.

It starts off with a scene at a fancy auction house where the emcee announces a new block up for auction – a magical crown. As the bidding begins, in storms the evil Prince Nuada who has come to take the crown for his own evil purposes and wage war on humans. A big gnome storms in to take the crown and we don’t see exactly what happens but we see the aftermath and it looks like he messed the place up pretty bad.

That brings us to our man Hellboy who, along with Liz and Abe, heads off to investigate the site. As they’re looking around they sense danger and suddenly are swarmed by bug-like creatures. After this things started coming in rather quickly so I’ll try to summarize as best I can. We’re introduced to Princess Nuala who explains that her brother became corrupt with power and killed her father, King Balor.

We see Hellboy on the streets using a pair of glasses somewhat similar to MEN IN BLACK (or THEY LIVE) that allows him to see the true nature of people. He looks at a seemingly innocent woman and reveals her to be some kind of creature. She first denies it but then is shocked that he can tell.

We then learn that the Crown can summon and control the long-hibernating Golden Army. To this Hellboy says, “Oh crap.” Now we see Hellboy running through a city street with a baby in his arms and later he is face-to-face with the Prince who wonders why he is helping the humans (who are seen recoiling in fear) – “You have more in common with us than them,” he tells HB.

After some really quick action, Hellboy says, “Aw, you woke up the baby,” and whips out the BIG BABY gun and starts blasting. We see a few quick glimpses like that glowing octopus type monster from the first trailer and then the end. All in all a much better look at what we can expect from HELLBOY II when it hits theaters later this summer.

BABY MAMA

Next up were a few scenes from the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy BABY
MAMA. In the film, Tina plays an upscale woman who wants to have a baby but is physically unable to do so, so she hires Amy Poehler as a surrogate. As you may expect, Amy’s character isn’t nearly as sophisticated.

The first clip starts shortly after Amy has moved in with Tina. Amy plops herself down on the couch to watch her favorite TV show “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” A clip comes on of a father and son playing wiffle ball leading Tina to say tell her the dad is gonna get hit in the nuts. “You’ve seen this one already?” asks Amy. Tina tries to explain that a boy with a bat and a father with a groin always leads to the father getting hit in the groan. Amy doesn’t get it and is pissed she spoiled it for her. She thinks it won’t be funny now. Of course the guy gets hit in the nuts and Amy cracks up laughing anyway. She then takes a wad of gum out of her mouth and sticks it underneath the coffee table. Tina notices and asks, “Did you just stick gum underneath my coffee table?” Amy says, “I don’t know.” Tina looks underneath the table and it is covered with chewed gum. Tina is pissed, Amy still won’t admit she did it and Tina says, “This isn’t an Arby’s!” Amy shouts back, “Well I wish it was an Arby’s cause there’d be better food and cooler people!”

The next scene takes up at the office of Sigourney Weaver, the head of the company that hooks up women with surrogates. There’s a support group going on and Amy, Tina and a few other couples are trying to work through their issues. Weaver rubs her stomach and says she’s happy to report that she’s expecting. Amy says, “expecting what, social security?” Tina and Amy are still bickering about the gum and Sigourney says they must remember they’re partners in this. Amy says, “Yeah like Tom and Jerry.” Tina reminds her that Tom and Jerry hated each other. Later back at the house, Amy is lying in Tina’s bed and Tina walks by and apologizes for the whole issue and says she’ll work harder to be a better partner. Amy says, “Yeah I’m sorry I farted in your purse.”

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE
DRAGON EMPEROR

We were shown the teaser
trailer for THE
MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR and it was real quick so I had a
hard time getting down everything that happened but let me do my best to give
you the gist.

A
quick shot of the Great Wall of China. Brendan Fraser and crew are on an
archaeological dig in China. They walk into a room full of stone
statues. They talk about The Dragon Emperor and how he was cursed by his
enemies and turned into a mummy of stone. Fraser accidentally sets
something off that awakens the Dragon Emperor and he comes breaking out of his
rockness and charging out of the tomb.

Everything
afterwards came at us real fast but I swear I saw a Yeti in there somewhere and
at the end there was an extended shot of a three-headed dragon creature who
didn’t look too happy. There was a 300-like shot of a mass of arrows
coming down from the sky on some poor saps. Fraser and his son in the
movie exchanging some banter and quick glimpses of Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li in
action.

I’ve
never been a big fan of the MUMMY series but what Rob Cohen did looks to be more
impressive that what Stephen Sommers did with the first two films. Not
that it blew my shoes off, but I was pleasantly surprised.