New Trailer for Roland Emmerich's 'Anonymous'

Okay, this has rolled out in the last few hours or so. It's okay, but a bit talky and melodramatic. Yeah, I know...it's a melodrama, but having a trailer that plays melodramatic isn't a good thing.

At 1:17, "He came to me, Ben. He came to me." This is an exchange between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, who was rumored to be a major rival. Here it seems Shakespeare (Rafe Spall) is pretty full of himself and Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) looks fairly shattered. I'm sure the writer, John Orloff (love that name), conjured up some devilish interplay between the two that will seem historically accurate in context but, really, is all smoke and mirrors.

The problem with this trailer is, while the central conflict is made clear, how it relates to all the characters that flash by is hard to grasp. This tense moment between competing playwrights, for instance, is nice but it's not clear how it fits. Story details are flecked throughout the trailer, but there's never quite enough to grab onto, not in the moment at least. There's no sense of throughline and it's difficult to know who's who and what their agenda is.

Leaves the viewer with both too much information and too little at the same time. A strange, if noteworthy, accomplishment.



I do like what comes at :52 -- "In my world one does not write plays. William Shakespeare, people like you do." Who is the speaker? That's Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, played by Rhys Ifans. Would it have been looked down upon for a member of that caste to pen fiction? Quite a conceit: The Earl of Oxford has his most fanciful notions ghost-written by a schlub named Shakespeare, and that was what William was in Ben's face about. He, Shakespeare, had been chosen to sign his name to the Earl of Oxford's writing, not Jonson.

Okay, that's a lot of fun. Cool stuff. But, the trailer just doesn't click. Who can get all that from watching it once? They have to fix that. If they can, the movie will stand a much better chance of scoring at the box office.

I'm not feeling a lot of warmth for this flick at this point. This new trailer makes it seem more like an intellectual exercise than a dramatic feature. Not like the first trailer, which brought a lot more sizzle, albeit at the cost of details.

Here it is. Heavy with intrigue, drama. I think this is far more effective.



That's atmospheric, edgy, and pretty sharp. Easy to enjoy simply because plot details are, largely, withheld. The snippets are enticing not confusing. Makes you want to see the movie.

They need to try again. We need the storyline more plainly laid out. We have to be able to recognize who's doing the talking. That's the only way the we're going to be able to care about the posturing of the various characters.

At any rate, 'Anonymous' is a must-see as it's something of a curiosity coming from the Master of Disaster Roland Emmerich. Movie buffs will pick up on that but perhaps not the average moviegoer despite the obvious production quality. Right now, after this second trailer, I'm not seeing too many regular folk lining up for a theatrical release.

.