Saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on Friday, and liked it. Not sure if it was better than the first one, as many seem to hold, but I do think it measured up admirably. Liked that we got to hear from all the members of the Fellowship; I think Legolas said more in the first 15 minutes of this movie than he did in the entire first one. I don't remember Gimli being used as such comic relief the last time out, but it's possible.

Among the 400 or so trailers they showed, five stand out. And not necessarily for positive reasons:

Terminator 3 More time travel has Ahnud's Terminator fighting a new model (a female!) who was also sent back (or forward?) in time to take out John Connor and other machines protecting humans. For all the action in this trailer, it still wasn't as violent as the trailer for...

Bad Boys 2, which looks like it'll be a cross between Fastlane and Blow'd Up. Lots of fancy cars, gun fire, and explosions in the trailer. Some funny lines, too, but I fear that this'll be a case where all the funny stuff is in the trailer, leaving the bulk of the movie to just sit there, making booming noises. I'd rather see a making of documentary, given the fairly regular reports about issues with Martin Lawrence on the set.

When Harry Met Lloyd: Dumb and Dumberer A prequel to Dumb and Dumber, meaning that there's no Jim Carrey or Jeff Daniels. Instead we get Eric Christian Olsen and Derek Richardson, who I've never heard of and had to look up, as there's no mention of them in the trailer (or visuals of them; the entire trailer is dedicated to defining dumb, dumber, and dumberer). Olsen may be best known for playing John Mason in the current season of 24, while Richardson's only IMDB credit is for this movie.

NOTE: These are sequels to movies made 11, 8, and 9 years ago. Nothing like striking while the iron is hot.

Bruce Almighty An ordinary Joe (well, Bruce) meets God and gets His powers for one week. Given that Bruce is played by Jim Carrey, you can guess that the film will not engage in a metaphysical inquiry into the meaning of mortality and power. This actually looked like the best film of the five trailers that I remember, which is a sad commentary indeed.

The Core This may be the stupidest one of the five, which is a breathtaking statement. A military weapon that sends targeted seismic waves has the side effect of stopping the Earth's core from spinning. This apparently leads to a variety of disruptions topside, with the bottom line that the planet will cook itself in about a year. The government funds a crash program to build a vehicle that will burrow down to the core, drop off 1000 megatons of nukes, and get the hell out of Dodge before they blow and jump start the core.

Aaron Eckhart headlines a cast full of people that should have known better (Delroy Lindo, Alfre Woodard, Stanley Tucci, and Hillary Swank, who seems to think that an Oscar excuses one when making crap like this).

If nothing else, seeing trailers like this reminds me that I can use the time that all these movies are in the theaters to stay home and catch up on better stuff that I missed on DVD.