Trailer Park: '42,' 'Beautiful Creatures,' 'Gambit' and More

In this week's trailer round-up, we have Lindsay Lohan playing a troubled actress (that isn't named Lindsay Lohan), more Hobbit heroics, the Coen brothers' latest romp and Jackie Robinson circling the bases. Roll 'em!

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES

Release Date: Feb. 13, 2013

Meet the latest Young Adult adaptation that has the potential to be the next Harry Potter, Twilight or Hunger Games. Based on the first installment of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's best-selling Caster Chronicles series, Beautiful Creatures centers on Lena Duchannes, a beautiful young girl who invites terror everywhere she goes—possibly because she's not human! Then there's Ethan Wate, the curious boy who falls for the magical gal even though she's busting classroom glass and conjuring secrets on possessed book pages. Aside from the solid string of bit players (Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum) populating this fantasy, it's hard to get a read on the first look of the adaptation, and whether it will be an darkly entertaining romance or a schlocky Bella-and-Edward rehash. One good sign: newcomer Alice Englert seems to shine as the complicated heroine, Lena.

NATURE CALLS

Release Date: November 9

For Nature Calls, "red band trailer" means "more f-words and pee jokes." For us, it means an excruciating few minutes. We feel sorry for Patton Oswalt, Johnny Knoxville and Rob Riggle for their involvement in this foul mess of a camping satire, which was already panned when it premiered at South by Southwest in March. But is this really how we have to remember the late, great Patrice O'Neal? Does Knoxville's crucifixion really have to go hand-in-hand with one of the comic's final performances? Let's move on from this humorless horror story—if not for our sake, then for Patrice's.

GAMBIT

Release Date: 2013

The Coen brothers are back writing in screwball comedy mode with this Michael Hoffman-directed caper -- which is fairly problematic, since their last few tries at screwball comedy (Burn After Reading, The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty) have been strangely hollow. From the looks of this trailer, Gambit might not reverse the trend. Colin Firth plays a nebbishy drone who teams up with a hastily drawn cowgirl (Cameron Diaz) to trick his boss (Alan Rickman) out of a lot of money. The right actors are in place, but the "outrageous" moments of this trailer, like Rickman's desk nudity and Firth's pants-less high-wire act, are leagues below the Coens' Lebowski heyday. For Firth, Gambit could be a nice change of pace if the story is tighter than it looks here.

LIZ & DICK

Release Date: November

Okay okay, this isn't really a standard film trailer -- it's a 30-second preview for the upcoming Lifetime movie Liz & Dick, starring Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor and Grant Bowler as the late actress' great love, RIchard Burton. But its short length or "Television for Women" status shouldn't dissuade anyone from watching this completely bonkers trailer. "They drink! They fight! They FORNICATE!" declares a voiceover, in between shots of Lindsay-as-Liz throwing wine glasses, steaming up a bubble bath and rocking out to Alex Clare's "Too Close." If you had any doubts that Liz & Dick would be supremely watchable trash, just wait until the final exchange -- "You just ended your fourth marriage!" "Oh, WHO'S COUNTING!" Perhaps a sudsy TV movie about Elizabeth Taylor, whom Lohan strongly resembles in these clips, is the antidote for the young actress' arrest-plagued career. And even if it's not, we'll be damned if we can't watch this trailer five times in a row.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

Release Date: December 14

Another extended look at Peter Jackson's insanely anticipated Middle Earth return, this time with a few idiosyncrasies that separate it from the last Hobbit trailer. For one, there's no bloody singing, and a juicy look at the interaction between Gollum and Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman). Most importantly, however, this trailer includes a fair amount of action -- highlighted by the gang's pratfalls while journeying along a small cliff shelf -- that suggest it won't be an origin story with low stakes, as the last trailer did. Mixed with the hijinks of the parting shot, this trailer strikes all the right emotional tones.

*MUST-SEE TRAILER OF THE WEEK*

42

Release Date: April 12, 2013

The first trailer for the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 is simply too good to be arriving this early— now we have to wait nearly seven months to experience what promises to be an explosively entertaining history lesson. The preview contains images that linger, like #42 strolling out of the dugout and Robinson (played by Chadwick Boseman) getting beaned by a white pitcher. It's got some tremendous dialogue ("I want a player who's got the guts not to fight back!"). It's got Harrison Ford in Scottie Pippen mode as an all-star supporting player, and it's got Jay-Z spitting about Brooklyn! In 90 seconds, the 42 trailer delivers everything necessary to suggest that it got the story right. The trailer is... wait for it... a home run.