Vanishing on 7th Street Directed by: Brad Anderson Starring: Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, John Leguizamo Rating: R Release Date: February 18, 2011
TRAILER SCORE: 5/10
MY THOUGHTS: Seems an awful lot like an M. Night Shyamalan premise, mixed in with a dash of Kirk Cameron's Left Behind. Not the most flattering thing I've ever said about a trailer off the get go, that's for sure.
This trailer starts off cool enough -- I like the opening shot of the city (at dawn presumably), it looks like Anywhere, U.S.A. and that drew me in. But just a short time later, when the jumbo-jet crashes into the city streets, that's when this trailer started to lose me. I was wondering, "how did that jet just happen to wait to fall out of the sky until the perfectly dramatic moment?" Wouldn't the plane have crashed much sooner? Perhaps they'll adequately address this in the film, but I feel there will likely be many such holes, and based on what I've seen in this trailer, Vanishing on 7th Street has a real done-to-death cheese-ball feel to it.
I want to like this film, and I'm planning on seeing it, because I love Hayden Christensen (GASP! I know, I know, I'm supposed to hate him), but after watching this trailer a couple times, I'm pretty skeptical.
However, this film does have a few feathers in its proverbial cap. Feather one: Director Brad Anderson is a solid entertainer. I thought Transsiberian was surprisingly good, and felt the same about The Machinist. Anderson is not an earth-shattering director, but he does turn out watchable entertainment. Feather two: Thandie Newton, John Leguizamo and Hayden Christensen are all talented players (seriously, stop grumbling about Christensen, it's become passe). Feather three: It's rated R. I was happy to see that, as this trailer reeked of PG-13.