There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding the release of the new Captain America film, despite the fact that, as superheroes go, Captain America is pretty lame. He’s called Captain America for starters – how lame is that?

Anyway, the first full movie trailer for Paramount/Marvel flick has arrived online, much to everyone’s initial thrill.

Captain America: The First Avenger has been directed by Joe Johston (who did… uh… Jurassic Park III and Jumanji… Christ, this is going to be awful isn’t it?) and stars (no, not that one) Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Hugo Weaving, Stanley Tucci, Sebastian Stan, Toby Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Dominic Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Derek Luke and Neal McDonough. For the most part: Who? Whatever. Trailer is over the jump.

Captain America: The First Avenger will be landing on conventional and 3D screens across the US and UK from July 22nd, 2011.

Which is aaages away.

In this flick, we’ll see sickly Steve Rogers getting ramped up to something like human perfection in an experiment by the United States army in World War II during the 1940s.

Then, he’ll sport the most excellent camouflage of a bright blue suit and a red and white shield that is just aching to be aimed at.

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What would you do for the love of a good woman? Buy her flowers every day? Sure. Go and see Sex And The City 3 whenever it comes out on the cinema? Maybe. Give up your dreams just so you can hold it against her when your once-strong relationship inevitably ends in bitter recriminations and crude accusations? Probably. So how about fighting her seven evil ex-boyfriends to the death?

Forget it. As someone slightly more famous than me once said – I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.

To be honest, I am not sure I would do he others either – but I guess that’s why I am single (no, really, I am). Thankfully, we have blokes like Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who would, just to win the love of the quirkily-coiffured Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). And it’s a good job, as it would have been a very short film if he hadn’t.
However, the problem is that her exes are all blessed with some kind of super power. One has the ability to summon demon hipster girls, another can disappear, while super villain and creator of the League of Evil Exes, Gideon Gordon Graves, combats the lovelorn Pilgrim armed only with an incredibly smug grin. Hardly a stretch for Jason Schwartzman.

Thankfully for loser Pilgrim, a bass player for a rubbish band called Sex Bob-omb, he inhabits a videogame/Manga-inspired universe dreamed up by Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Bryan Lee O’Malley.

Which certainly comes in handy when you are been attacked from all corners by an army of comic book baddies, who when defeated even explode into a Nintendo-style shower of coins. There are even power-ups, extra lives and even a ‘pee-ometer’.

No, really.

If you are now scratching your heads wondering how the hell a simple story of young love has ended up sounding like a Japanese schoolboy’s wet dream, it’s probably best if you stop reading now. To be honest, I am surprised I managed to get past the two words ‘Michael’ and ‘Cera’. But I did, thanks mainly to a smart script, a superb performance from Pilgrim’s snarky gay roommate Wallace Wells, played by Kieran Culkin, and Edgar Wright’s (Shaun of the Dead, Hot
Fuzz) brilliant direction.

What could easily have become a nerd-fest is actually a very charming and likeable film.

Sure, I am not cool enough or young enough, for that matter, to understand half of the pop culture references that continually clogged up the script.

Plus, I had to look at Cera’s ridiculous face – a cross between a constipated Muppet and a comfy chair – for over an hour-and-a-half, which, despite being beaten up for most of the film, never changed.

The Canadian actor really makes Keanu Reeves look like Marlon Brando. Winstead, meanwhile, provides capable support, but is not the kind of girl that would get me reaching for my joystick (we have already gone through this).

However, I came away from the cinema excited by a director willing to take risks. And while Scott Pilgrim will certainly not appeal to everyone, it is a shot in the arm for a genre desperately low on ideas. Even Cera, whose stuffed puppet eyes never registered any emotion throughout the entire movie, started to grow on me by the end, kind of like an insufferable mouth ulcer.

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There’s a new film coming out which you’ve probably heard about called Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. It stars deadbeat charmer Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera from Juno) who plays bass in a band called Sex Bob-omb. He falls for the elusive Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead from of Live Free or Die Hard) and she has seven exes who want to kick his arse to death.

And we have a sneaky peaky at the film in video form, along with words spoken by the mouth of director Edgar Wright (y’know? Spaced, Shaun of the Dead?).

It does actually look rather good in a trashy, comicbook Kick-Ass kinda way. Bad news if you thought Kick-Ass was rubbish or a sex-offender’s dream (c/o Daily Mail). Anyway, click over the jump for a preview.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is release August 25th

www.scottpilgrimthemovie.co.uk

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Tom Cruise is continuing his run of trying to make people think he’s less of a massive mental, religious freak.

First he stopped jumping around like a particularly stupid chimp, he stopped going on about Scientology in public – though he did see some of his private video collection released, much to the delight/terror (delete as appropriate) of the general public – and he’s seeing some rave reviews flying about for his small role in Tropic Thunder. So what next?

Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? Star in a superhero film, and get someone like Sam Raimi on board to produce. Which is, apparently, what’s being pushed for by Tom Cruise and Warner Bros, who own the rights to Sleeper – a short running comic book series from a few years back. Well, Raimi’s already on board, but you get the point.

And you can’t fault the man’s logic.

The rumoured decision happily fits in with our theory that Hollywood is physically incapable of having an original thought, ever, ever, ever. It also fits in with the current logic that if you make a film of a comic book it will make a lot of geeks wet with anticipation, thus creating millions upon millions of dollars to line the executive’s pockets with. And we all know how much they love money over there in movieland.

Valuing cash over creativity, honesty or integrity? Say it ain’t so! Ahem.

It appears, if reports are to be believed, that the latest in the line of films the studios hope will emulate the success of Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight is an adaptation of Sleeper – a limited series that ran from 2003-05 from the Wildstorm Universe and written by Ed Brubaker, whose writing credits include some work on X-Men and Captain America comics, amongst many others.

It does strike us that such a smalltime comic wouldn’t be the best of the potential earners out there for the studios and actors, but hey ho – it’s their money to waste and, who knows, they might get it right.

They won’t. But, you know – we are the bastions of truth, glory and optimism in the world of the internet. Wait, what? We’re not? Ah crap, Stu isn’t going to be happy…

The connection of Tom Cruise with the project has come about through the usual web of lies/rumours that prop up countless websites across the world, though it did originate at somewhere half-decent in the shape of The Hollywood Reporter, meaning we can leave it to them to explain the finer points:

Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, “Sleeper,” which ran from 2003-05, centers on an operative whose fusion with an alien artifact makes him impervious to pain and allows him to pass it on to others through skin contact. He is placed undercover in a villainous organization by an intelligence agency and falls for a member of the group, named Miss Misery.

Which sounds absolutely ideal for some big names to get attached to, a plethora of nerds to claim they read the book when it first came out (even though they picked it up off eBay on hearing the news a film was in the making) and a film to come out and get critically panned, while earning a small amount of cash.

You heard it here first.

We should also point out: superpowers afforded by the film adaptation still won’t allow Tom Cruise to keep pizzas warm using magic. Just thought we should point that out yet again.