“Trust me. I’m a Doctor.”

Well, given the whole regeneration thing, it had to happen at some point: In the year 2010, I’m now older than the Doctor. As David Tennant bids his US farewell tonight (reports are it’s another badly overstuffed Russell Davies number, but we’ll see), the era of Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith kicks off with this BBC teaser.

Hmmm…Seems alright so far — sort of a cross between Tennant and Peter Davison. In any case, I have faith in new showrunner Stephen Moffatt. Speaking of which, it looks like Alex Kingston is back, and Carey Mulligan may have to take a break from megastardom to help the Doctor with those stone angels again.

Update: The new trailer, frame-by-frame.

A Stocking full of Trailers.

Among the many Christmas trailers hitting the net today:

  • Jaden Smith (i.e. baby Will) waxes on, waxes off, and otherwise sweeps the leg at the behest of Jackie Chan in the trailer for the remake of The Karate Kid, also with Taraji P. Henson. Sigh…this makes me feel old.
  • Secret Agent Tom Cruise aims to protect Cameron Diaz for some reason or another in the new trailer for Knight & Day, also with Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, Oliver Martinez, Paul Dano, and Maggie Grace. Can’t say I’m feeling it.
  • Most intriguingly, Leonardo di Caprio folds space and discourses on memes — in French! — in the foreign-language trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Inception, also with Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine and Dileep Rao. Looks very Dark Knight-ish in its aesthetic…This could be the movie of the summer.
  • And if none of these float your boat, Harry at AICN has an overview of the garbage-y trailers out today, including Sex and the City 2, Furry Vengeance, Cats and Dogs 2, The Back-Up Plan, and Marmaduke. View at your own risk — These are NSFW, or anywhere else in God’s Creation, for that matter.

    The Kraken meets Dokken.

    Hey, Perseus: Cloverfield called — they want their Kraken back. The Avatar trailer bounty continues with another 300-ish trailer for Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans remake, with Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Pete Postlethwaite, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Mads Mikkelsen, Jason Flemyng, and Alexa Davalos. Eh, ok. They’re still angling too hard for the meathead demographic imho, but at least they lost that embarrassing “Titans will Clash! tagline from the last go-round.

    Mind the Whiplash.

    And another late arrival in today’s trailer bin, which will also presumably be featured before Avatar tomorrow night: The Stark family past catches up to Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) in the teaser for Jon Favreau’s eagerly-anticipated Iron Man 2, also with Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle (replacing Terrence Howard as Rhodey), Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell (blink and you’ll miss him), Samuel L. Jackson, Garry Shandling, and Mickey Rourke. Yes, they made a sequel to the movie about the trailer…From a fanboy perspective, I’m still thinking Johannson is badly miscast as the Black Widow. Otherwise, this looks like more of the same — Count me in.

    Prince of Thieves, Queen of Hearts.

    In the trailer bin, Russell Crowe grunts, growls, and generally looks very Maximus-ish in the new trailer for Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, also with William Hurt, Mark Strong, Max von Sydow, Oscar Isaac, and Cate Blanchett (nee Sienna Miller) as Maid Marian. And two colorful new trailers for Disney’s Alice in Wonderland suggest Tim Burton might have gone pretty far afield from the original Lewis Carroll tome, and that Johnny Depp might get Willy Wonka-annoying here after awhile.

    Update: But does he know the street value of that mountain? It’s The Hangover meets Back to the Future as John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke travel back to 1986 in a Hot Tub Time Machine, also with Lizzy Caplan, Crispin Glover, and Chevy Chase. Um, yeah.

    Jefferson, I Think We’re Lost.

    By way of AICN, most of Team Sexy Beast (Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, the writers) conspire with the venerable John Hurt and most of Team John Adams (Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Dillane) in the new trailer for Malcolm Venville’s cockney crime story 44 Inch Chest, also with Joanne Whalley. With that pedigree and cast, count me in.

    The Teen Titans.

    In today’s trailer bin, director Matthew Vaughn borrows a little bad reputation from Freaks & Geeks to make the case for his adaptation of Kick-Ass, with Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. (So far, so good — from all indications, Moretz’s Hit Girl will steal the show.)

    Meanwhile, Sam Worthington takes on big scorpions and sundry other Kraken-like things in the very 300-ish trailer for Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans remake, also with Alexa Davalos, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Danny Huston, Gemma Arterton, Pete Postlethwaite, Jason Flemyng and Mads Mikkelsen. Frankly, it sorta lost me with the lousy aggro-whiteboy rock, but ya never know. And “Titans Will Clash!“…ugh. Who were the ad wizards who came up with that one?

    The Plame Supremacy.

    Take-no-guff CIA agent Angelina Jolie is forced to become a rogue asset when she’s falsely outed as a Russian spy in the new trailer for Phillip Noyce’s Salt, also with Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Noyce has been making international-minded prestige pics of late (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Catch a Fire, The Quiet American), so this is more of a throwback to his early Jack Ryan days (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger.) And Jolie’s never hard to watch, and I think she could make for a fun female Bond…but let’s hope this is better than their last pic together, The Bone Collector (or, for that matter, Doug Liman’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which most obviously comes to mind here.)

    Vizier Quest.

    Donnie Darko appears to be having more trouble with the timestream (at least as far as I can ascertain without sound) in the CGI-heavy full trailer for Mike Newell’s The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, with Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton (late of the last Bond), Alfred Molina, and Ben Kingsley. (Does Kingsley say no to projects anymore?) Eh, it looks like The Mummy meets one of the later Pirates movies, but I guess it could be fun in a turn-your-brain-off, two hours of air conditioning kind of way.

    Single White Human, Looking for Group.

    They don’t care what’s in your character bank: Paraplegic veteran Sam Worthington rolls Draenei and goes native in the brand-spankin’ new second trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar, also with Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, and Michelle Rodriguez. (Well, actually this trailer has been floating around in bootleg form for a few days now, but I figured this movie more than most needs to be judged and/or appreciated in hi-def.)

    Anyway, so far, so good. Ribisi and Rodriguez seem a lot like Paul Reiser (Burke) and Jenette Goldstein (Vasquez) from Aliens respectively. And while a lot of the “Dances with Thundersmurfs” hectoring out there can be chalked up to the usual aggro-fanboy haterade, Avatar‘s whole central plot-line does seem pretty doggone similar to Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai, Dune, or any other flick/book you can name where a good outsider throws in with the “noble savage” locals to beat back the massively superior technological firepower of the would-be colonialists. (“This is our land!!” It is? No, it’s their land, buddy. Ease up with your bad self.)

    Still, it’s gonna make for some amazing eye candy, that’s for sure. And as long as the Na’vi don’t squeal like Ewoks or Gungans as they fight, I should be able to dig it.