‘Franklyn’ Trailer = Awesome
Jan 11, 2009 by Ross MillerTake a moment to check out the trailer for this amazing looking sci-fi/film-noir movie.
This is one of those “Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that one a while ago,” type of movies. Odds are it’ll be only UK readers who will have heard of it, since it’s British-made and only a UK release date has been set with no word on a US one (surprisingly there’s word going around that it won’t be released in theaters in the US at all – now that would be a shame).
The film is called Franklyn and it was written and directed by Gerald McMorrow, making his feature directing debut, will be produced by Jeremy Thomas (Fast Food Nation, Tideland) and stars Ryan Phillippe, Eva Green, Sam Riley and Bernard Hill.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Franklyn:
“is a split narrative set simultaneously in contemporary London and in a future metropolis ruled by religious fervor. It’s the story of four lost souls, divided by two parallel worlds, on course for an explosive collision when a single bullet will decide all their fates.”
“Ryan Phillippe plays Preest, a masked vigilante detective searching for his nemesis on the streets of Meanwhile City. Bernard Hill plays Esser, a broken man searching for his wayward son amongst the rough streets of London’s homeless. Sam Riley plays Milo, a heartbroken thirty-something desperately trying to find a way back to the purity of first love. Eva Green plays Emilia, a beautiful art student; her suicidal art projects are becoming increasingly more complex and deadly.”
And now behold the awesomeness that is the trailer:
Franklyn had been on my radar at one point after hearing about it a long while ago (we’re talking well over a year) in Empire or Total Film magazine. And although it premiered at the London Film Festival in October 2008, for some reason no news really came out about it afterwards, and it therefore fell off my radar and practically fully off the movie-news map. But now we finally get an official trailer for it and I have to say it looks awesome. It looks like a kind of mix between V For Vendetta (with the whole “masked vigilante” idea) and Watchmen (with the whole bleak, more realistic nature of it – not to mention the similarities in look between the Preest character here and Rorschach in Watchmen).
Let’s hope the similarities to the awful recent film The Spirit, by way of the “vigilante detective searching for his nemesis on the streets….”, aren’t too similar once we see the actual movie itself.
I love the cast they’ve assembled, they just seem to be a good fit with one another. Ryan Philippe is an undervalued actor, Eva Green gave a good, “more than just eye-candy” performance in Casino Royale, proving she’s got great potential to go onto brilliant things, and young Sam Riley was magnificent as Joy Division singer Ian Curtis in the brilliant Control (if anyone hasn’t seen that film – do so asap).
I love it when films of this nature take on a darker, brooding, more pessimistic approach to things as opposed to something like the (in comparison) “light” natured Spider-Man trilogy. But along with it being a sci-fi/action flick it also looks like it’s going to be about more than just action – something I’m glad we’re starting to see more of with the likes of the aforementioned V For Vendetta and Watchmen (which I’ve heard is a more dialogue driven story from the graphic novel – correct me if I’m wrong there).
The actual trailer itself really sells it, too. Apart from the music being an alternate version of the overly used 28 Days Later theme (I’ve lost count how many trailers have used that music), it’s chalk full of great dialogue, it looks visually stunning and the story seems very compelling.
However I’m surprised it’s taken this long for an official trailer to come out, as the UK release date is only about a month away. Is that a sign of bad things, perhaps?
So does the Franklyn trailer excite you or will you get your fix of this kind of thing this year from Watchmen?
Franklyn opens in the UK on February 20th and there’s no word on a US release date as of yet.
Source: IGN
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Looks very cool, it’s a shame the music in the trailer couldn’t have been better, takes away any sense of seriousness. Just my opinion.
As much as I’m looking forward to Watchmen (Jesus, who isn’t) I’m quite intrigued by this one ; I hadn’t heard about it until I saw this trailer right now, and I really hope they play it in the States.
Interesting although I barely had a sense of what’s going on but I’ve also never heard of this before.
The coloring has a greenish cast that reminds me of The Matrix. And I see how you get the other two movie feel but other than that, is this a comic or something that I could look up.
Maybe I’d find out what’s going on and why a former Bond girl is showing up in water again.
This movie looks scary enough
It reminds me of V for Vendetta as well. Hopefully with action that is not as retarded, dialog not as corny, and without the political messages.
I wonder what rifle is he using? From one shot it looks like it has the over-the-barrel gas port like a Russian style rifle like the SVD Dragunov…
I hope not. I wonder when people will finally realize that the Dragunov is NOT a super accurate sniper rifle… Stupid video games and movies for making a weapon way overrated…
I’m sure if it does well enough in the UK, some production company will bring it to the US. Everyone is out to make money you know…
@Ken
Couldn’t you put your rifle down for five minutes when talking about this movie?
And, I loved the action in V. I thought it was great. So there!
@prtfvr
LOL, I was just curious. I know they shoot movies with the preconception that nobody watching it would know the difference in firearms, but some people do, like me. It would be nice if movie makers took the extra effort to polish every detail. It would make it that much more authentic feeling and at least show that some effort was made. Oh well, it’s not really a big deal with this movie in particular, this time I’m just curious. Other times they make some mistakes that actually affect the film’s believability, but I doubt there will be anything in this that would even be noticed.
Did you see The Sentinel? There was a scene where Jack Ba… I mean Kiefer Sutherland’s character examines the crime scene of a secret service agent that was shot dead. EVERYTHING he says about that scene was wrong, lol. First he talks about how the “safety” on his side arm is still on, and SS agents are trained to draw while deactivating the safety… Sounds good, except the SS use Glocks, which don’t have a manual safety at all… Then he talks about a missed shot going into the door jam, and how because it didn’t penetrate the wood, it proves a silencer was used. Well, unlike what most movies and video games tell you about sound suppressors, they actually INCREASE muzzle velocity, not decrease it. So technically, if a silencer was used, it would have been more likely to penetrate instead of less likely like they portrayed in the movie.
Anyway, while it’s true most people thought that scene was really clever, my friends and I had a little chuckle about it. We refer to it every now and then in a joking manner. Hey, some people are nerds when it comes to video games, others music, others cars, for us, it’s guns. lol
Oh, and even if this never makes it into US theaters, they usually would release it on DVD with a region free version. It looks pretty interesting, hopefully we get to see it in some form or another…
@Ken
LOL! You sound like my son with the guns. If we watch a movie with a gun in it, he’s always correcting what they’re saying.
Me, that’s not my hobby so whatever they use, the person looks just as dead to me.
But I know what you mean about watching a movie and they hit upon a topic you know enough about to know that what they’re telling you is completely wrong. I hate when that happens.
As I was watching this I swear that the two films that came to mind were Watchmen and V for Vendatta(and I watched the trailer before I read the article..always do)…I loved V and the political message was dead on for the world political climate at the time…Patriot Act and all that garbage…Ken you sure know your weapons…me I’m a medical professional so when I see people being shot in action movies then getting up and beating the snot out of 10 people then going on to save the world it bugs the bejeepers outta me…you were shot in the shoulder..in the real world you would not be able to use that arm for anything for a long time..you were shot in the abdomen and now you can run out of a building that’s about to blow..you wouldn’t be walking anywhere no matter how big your jewels are..like I said bugs me to no end…but we want escapism I guess and not too much realism in our action movies…YAHH FER SURE!!
I wonder, have you heard of something called the “Civil Defense Corps” being mentioned by anyone of special interest as of late?? lol
Maybe that should be referred to in some movie…
Or maybe they should talk about the federal government controlling where your money goes through taxation. Or the government rendering their population defenseless against their own government.
But I guess if they do that, people might mistaken that for a WWII movie since Hitler had his own version of the “Civil Defense Corps” we know as the Gustapo, and he also outlawed guns so only the government will be armed to prevent an effective revolutionary movement by the people. Damn history and it repeating itself…
@prtfvr
Unfortunately for me, it happens with a lot more than just guns. I also am very into cars, I have torn down car engines to their bare blocks before, and planning on rebuilding the engine in my 1992 Mustang GT. I do all of the work on my cars myself. So I know a little something about them too. So when we have retarded movies like The Fast and the Furious and its sequels with their little rice burners that have less torque than my lug nuts require (car nut joke, actually technically inaccurate since one is ft-lbs the other is in-lbs…) going head to head and beating muscle cars and whatever, it’s a bit hard for me to swallow as well.
Or when a movie does something completely unrealistic with computers, like all of the movies and shows where they can magically “enhance” a completely pixelated image to get details that the original never captured…
Or how in movies everything beeps and makes weird noises whenever you’re doing something… Or how they have computers do things that are completely impossible. Yes, I’m a computer nerd too, I am like the nerd king of nerds, lol. All I need is my pocket protector…
And now I’m really getting into photography. I’m starting to notice what apertures they are using for shots, and noticing lens filter glare in shots, and all of that stuff. Can’t be good… It’ll just be another thing I’ll start noticing that will start bothering me…
So maybe you see why so many things bother me about movies, lol.
@Ken
I might be mistaken but didn’t you say at one point that you’re Asian? If so, you sure are moving into stereotype land with those hobbies. I mean, computers and photography? Come on!
But seriously, I completely understand what you’re talking about when you say that the computer errors in movies bug you.
That enhancement feature seems to work on everything. Even convenience store camera because their tape quality is always so high res. Have you ever seen Super Troopers? They mock the enhance thing from Star Trek actually but it applies to today’s movies too. “Enhance, enhance, enhance.”
It must be a full moon tonight what with you talking about your “lug nuts” and greenknight talking about his “jewels”. I can’t wait to see where all this is headed. No pun intended, much.
Hey, I just took some really nice photos of the full moon with my dSLR last night, lol.
But anyway, you are forgetting the cars and guns!! I’m breaking away from the stereotype! lol
Seems kinda cool but at the same time, those police dudes with the top hats hurt my excitement as well as the makeup on Eva in the one scene. Other than that, I like a lot of the style.
The title character obviously feels like a huge Rorschach ripoff (nice voice emulation Mr. Phillippe) and what strange timing of this film with Watchmen planned for March, heh.
I’ll watch it, but this doesn’t make my most anticipated list.
looks really cool.
ha,they have HUGE hats !
@Ken
ROTFL! Breaking away from the stereotype, eh? HAH! Cars and guns are becoming very popular in the movies. In Japan, at least. Don’t make me play guess the race.
Congrats on the picture taking. Did you take them at night so no one would see you?
I don’t like the dude’s mask. He looks like he’s missing part of his 40′s gas mask. Or that he’s going to be in a horror movie about fencing. I don’t know if I can take him seriously.
Then again, I thought that I wouldn’t be able to take V seriously and I wound up loving that movie. You know you’re a good actor when you can make people feel your emotions even though they can’t see your face.
I know, I know. There are tons of other masked movie people that I’ve enjoyed but this guy’s mask bothers me. I guess it’s a wait until I see it thing.
What’s this about tall hats? Really, I’m taking a lot of drugs so maybe I missed it. I’ll have to watch it again. Maybe his mask won’t disturb me as much.
nice trailer, gave me a vibe of V for Vendetta / Watchmen / The Spirit
V for Vendetta, for me was a perfect film. It came at a time I hadn’t seen such a perfect film for a very long time. It took me completely by surprise! And I still love it.
@ Ken & others:
I also have the same thing, but with computers. That’s the reason why I stopped watching CSI Miami, was just full of it. I like watching NCIS, they are not that magically on the computer side of the story.
I know a good story or film or game doesn’t need all the perfect details in the world. But if you are into something, than you will notice all small and big mistakes, and that’s not that fun. I can take a lot of “mistakes”, like the Sonar-thing in Batman. They didn’t overuse it that much, so it was ok for me. The rest of the film was perfect to me.
The awesomness that is …Franklyn? Right. Just what action/sci-fi/comic fans need in their movies. Another studio created pile leeching of the popularity of succesful characters from the printed world. The budget for the movie will produce another half-assed crappy wannabe like Aeon Flux and Ultra Violet.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, “Where is Riddick when we need him”? How about the studios putting money behind a franchise that has a built in fan base, richly deserves a trilogy and is way past due. Orson Scott Card’s Ender Wiggins series maybe? or a huge budget rockin’ adaptation of stephen King’s The Gunslinger.
Franklyn is gonna b lame, long on style, short on substance.
Dark City was the other one it reminded me of.
I can think of two REALLY good reasons to see it..
E V A G R E E N
Eva Green’s hot in a weird way. She doesn’t have conventional good looks but the more you look at her the more you realize she’s actually hot.
@prtfvr
I live in the USA, so it really doesn’t matter what is getting popular in whatever Asian country. If you want to guess my race, here’s a hint if you know your history. Call me Japanese and I will be pissed. Anything else, eh, whatever…
And anyway, my top hobby first and foremost is shooting and anything gun related. So that definitely doesn’t go with the Asian stereotype. If movies and tv has any say, I should just be the tech guy… The Jackal had an Asian sniper, that was refreshing…
@Ken
Well darn it Ken! I said that the Japanese cinema is really getting into the shoot ‘em ups. I didn’t call you Japanese although I’m not sure why that’s an insult other than it seeming like I’m saying “you all look alike.” Which I’m not.
It does matter what’s popular in the Asian culture because it’s becoming more main stream here. We used to only be able to see some of these movies in art houses. They were never widely released if they had sub-titles.
Hey and I’m going to quit right now before I sound like too much of a pompous ass. Am I too late?
Oh and Ken, I’m from Baltmore but when I go down south they think I’m from NY. Why I oughta…!
@Ken
I’d like to add an “uh duh, I’m so stupid” comment. I totally ignored your statement about knowing my history and why you don’t want to be called Japanese. I’m stupid. If you always remember that, then I’ll never be able to offend you.
You’ve never insulted me prtfvr, I was being completely light-hearted in my statements.
I don’t expect most people to know the part of history I’m referring to that would explain that. Our schools ignore it, movies ignore it, video games ignore it. There’s really no way for Americans to know what I’m talking about unless they’ve specifically looked it up themselves. So don’t worry.
I’m Chinese, now we can stop the guessing games, lol. We typically don’t like to be called Japanese because of the Japanese attitude toward the Chinese. In that Chinese people are inferior (actually, they think that about all of Asia) and how they have shown this attitude during WWII when they murdered almost 9 million Chinese civilians and who knows how many Filipinos, Koreans, etc. Movies and video games always portray WWII to only be against the Germans and the Nazi’s. So many movies have been devoted to the Holocaust, but not a single big box office blockbuster have been made showing the atrocities the Japanese committed in WWII. Partially because of the amount of economic influence the Japanese have on the USA, we dare not insult them…
But anyway, that’s as serious as I’m going to get in this thread, just wanted you to know you’re not “stupid” or anything for not knowing that, it’s not your fault. I blame the media… wait, I always blame the media, I’ll have to think of someone new to blame next time…
I’m sure the labor unions have something to do with it… lol j/k