Our pals over at Moviefone have an exclusive first look at the first trailer for Horton Hears a Who, based off the book written by Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) back in 1954. Jim Carrey once again visits the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss as Horton; an imaginative elephant who's convinced there's a community of people crying out for help on a tiny piece of dust that's flying through the air. Little does he know, but that tiny speck is actually its own planet; home to a city called Who-Ville and a feisty major (voiced by Steve Carell) who's privy to the world outside Who-Ville, even if no one else is. When the residents of Who-Ville ask Horton for protection, he happily obliges -- however, the surrounding animals all think he's gone nuts. Can Horton help his animal pals hear the Who-Ville cries before it's too late, and they end up a part of "beezlenut stew?" Though it's only a teaser, I have to say this one definitely has potential -- as it should with a voice cast that includes Carrey, Carell, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Dane Cook, Will Arnett, Dan Fogler, Amy Poehler and Isla Fisher. It also goes to show that Dr. Seuss material belongs in the animation realm, and not in live action. As much as I love Mike Myers and Jim Carrey, their two Seuss-related films (The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) were, um, not that good. Check out the trailer above; Horton Hears a Who hits theaters on March 14, 2008.

While 20 minutes of Beowulf was apparently screened last night at Comic-Con, the trailer and website for the film have landed online this morning. Although it's not 20 minutes, it certainly gives us a fairly dazzling look inside the world of Beowulf; director Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture follow-up to the disappointing Polar Express. But sometimes you need to sacrifice a film in order to learn and grow. Sure, Polar Express was fairly cool to look at, but it was just way too ... blah. Now, however, with Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman penning the script (which is based on an extremely old Anglo-Saxon poem), Zemeckis has a whole new world to play with. I figured he had improved the motion-capture technique since working on Polar Express, but I didn't expect to see him come this far. Visually, this movie looks amazing. The characters look so real (especially Angelina Jolie) that, for a moment there, I couldn't tell the difference between the real Angelina and the motion-capture Angelina. Until I saw the tail. I think there was a tail. Mmmm ... Angelina with a tail. Yum.

Anyway, Beowulf (Ray Winstone) tells of a warrior who must protect his town from the monstrous Grendel (Crispin Glover reuniting with Zemeckis for the first time since Back to the Future); an evil thing out killing all the towns folk. But once he gets Grendel out the way, then comes Grendel's mother (Jolie) -- a powerful woman who looks to seduce Beowulf before exacting her revenge for the murder of her son. Apart from Jolie, no one else really looks like the person they are in real life. Winstone is all bulked up and warrior-like, Glover is completely different and even Anthony Hopkins (who plays King Hrothgar) is hard to make out, with the exception of his, um, wide body shape. Stay tuned to Cinematical for much more Beowulf talk from Comic-Con; the film itself hits theaters (in 3-D on roughly 1,000 screens) on November 16.

Here's a gaggle of trailers whose stories appear to be fueled by bad ideas. Not that they're necessarily bad movies, but the films are based around one or more characters making questionable decisions. It's bad idea week on Trailer Park.

Wind Chill
Taking a ride home for the holidays from a potential stalker and then letting him take a detour down a little used road? Bad idea. Our two heroes find themselves stranded on a back road in the middle of a blizzard and hunted by malevolent ghosts. The trend of the modern torture/murder horror flick in the vein of Saw or Hostel seems to be ebbing a bit in favor of supernatural thrillers like this one that traffic in creep outs rather than gross outs. It looks pretty cool, and I'm hoping a bad idea for the characters turns into good news for moviegoers. Karina Longworth first mentioned this project her on Cinematical back in 2005.

28 Weeks Later
Return to London now that the military says the rage epidemic has been contained? Bad idea indeed, but I'm looking forward to this sequel to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, the zombie film without zombies. The last of the infected have died off, life appears to be returning to normal and Londoners are being allowed back into parts of the city. If all was well, however, we wouldn't have much of a movie. A single carrier serves to reignite the crisis. None of the characters are returning from the original, but I don't think that's going to have a negative impact. This looks like a solid creep-fest. Here's Scott Weinberg's take on the trailer.

Vacancy
Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale play a couple whose car breaks down, forcing them to stay the night in a seedy motel. You guessed it: bad idea. The place has roaches big enough to take your head off, and the video tapes in the VCR show movies that appear to be snuff films that were shot in that very same room. Someone's travel agent is going to get an earful, but in the meantime our heroes must survive the night. Paranoid and claustrophobic, this looks like it has potential. Here's what Scott thought.