So often a trailer is released and no one says much of it except, “I’d see it,” or “Eh, not interested.” So rarely are trailers actually reviewed.

…until now! We, the good people of This Podcast Is Not Yet Rated, strive to bring you the best movie reviews possible – current releases and classics alike. In an effort to be ahead of the curve, we’re so excited to begin reviewing new movie trailers. Our inaugural trailer is Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Jenny’s Trailer Review

Admittedly, I haven’t seen Man of Steel and I’ve only seen one Batman movie (The Dark Knight). Superhero movies aren’t necessarily my go-to genre. I watch them but they’re never my first choice.

My first impression of this film is that it features quite a few actors that I admire (professionally or visually, if you know what I mean). I’m not quite sure why creators of superhero films tend to swap out the actors so frequently (see: Spider-Man’s Tobey Maguire and The Amazing Spider-Man’s Andrew Garfield, and now Batman’s Christian Bale and Ben Affleck). If someone could explain this to me, it would be much appreciated (#please and #thankyou). Ben Affleck is a great talent, and I especially enjoyed his performances in Gone Girl and Argo, but it’s confusing when actors are swapped in and out in a short period of time (The Dark Knight Rises only came out in 2012!).

Also, inquiring minds do wonder… Why is Jesse Eisenberg so enthusiastic (Is he supposed to be funny? Crazy?). Why does five-time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams only appear for 3 seconds? I think I just saw a sleeping Michael Shannon for half a second..? Is the world always on fire? Does Wonder Woman not talk?

I’m sure I will see this film and my questions will all be answered, but this trailer feels very average. The cast is intriguing enough to get my bum in a movie theater, but the story doesn’t feel too compelling.

** (out of ****)

Gavin’s Trailer Review

I am not a comic book movie person. I enjoyed Batman Begins and large parts of The Dark Knight, but The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel bored me to tears. By the same token, the Marvel films are positively sleep-inducing and impossible to comprehend if you don’t have a PhD in Tesseract Studies.

It’s with this skepticism that ­­I approach Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. For the most part, the trailer piqued my interest. The scale of the production and the unique, controlled tone are noteworthy. Like Man of Steel, this film appears to have its fair share of generic alien creatures, but it balances that with what looks to be interesting performance from Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luther with hair.

Indeed, the cast that director Zack Snyder has assembled is impressive: Jeremy Irons, Ezra Miller, Scoot McNairy, and Ben Affleck, are some of the most interesting actors around. Even Eisenberg seems to be trying, so on a performance level, this movie might just deliver the goods.

However, I am troubled by what appears to be the continued marginalization of Amy Adams as Lois Lane. Adams is an actress who can make even the laziest films (Big Eyes, American Hustle) seem worthwhile, and her under-utilization in Man of Steel was one of my biggest issues with that movie. Judging purely by her short scene in the trailer, it doesn’t appear that Snyder and screenwriters David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio (Academy Award-winner for the terrific Argo) have figured out how to write a compelling female character. The three men appear to have put all their eggs in the Gal Godot as Wonder Woman basket, and I’ll be interested to see how that decision pans out.

** 1/2 (out of ****)

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens nationwide on March 25.