I’ve made no secret of my disdain for Sony rebooting the Spider-Man franchise so quickly after Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’ trilogy came to an (unplanned) end. But after watching the new trailer for Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man, I’ve finally found a reason to get excited about a new Spidey. Click through to watch the trailer and check out some high-res screengrabs of its blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em key moments.

First of all, do yourself a favor and bump the trailer up to full 1080p resolution, and expanded it to full screen. Totally worth it.

There’s lots of cool VFX in this trailer. There’s some terrific character moments (the one that will most warm your geeky little heart is when Spidey smack-talks a car thief). There’s some dynamic, fast-paced, brutal action scenes (seriously, Peter escaping the cops: whoa). There’s some fun dialogue (Gwen noting under her breath, “I’m in trouble,” I’m guessing comes shortly after she learns Peter’s secret, and realizes that she’s in love with him). The lighting and cinematography are appropriately dark and glistening (Webb’s New York City looks like the real thing more than Raimi’s candy-colored NYC). And there’s a noteworthy absence of any hokey FPS sequences, like we saw in the teaser trailer.

These are all things that fill me with great hope. But they’re not what changed my mind about The Amazing Spider-Man.

What captured my imagination is that the trailer reminded me once again why we love Spider-Man in the first place. We love him because he’s one of us. He’s a dork. A geek, who gets superpowers and finds the nobility to use them for good instead of gain. A fanboy who learns the hard way that being a superhero is a lot more complicated than the comic books make it look. A regular Joe who accepts the responsibility fate has thrust on him, despite the hardships and pains that it brings, and simply tries to do the best he can with the hand he’s been dealt.

I watch this trailer… And I believe. Again.

Raimi’s first Spider-Man was good. 2 was excellent. Just a brilliant, brilliant movie. But 3 was a hot mess. It had so many good things going for it, including a lot of potentially great ideas. Its problem was in getting away from the core of who Peter Parker is, by awarding him with fame and adoration, and letting him get caught up in it. Peter Parker is not Superman. He’s the underdog. People love him, but they don’t throw parades in his honor or give him the key to the city. I don’t fault Raimi for trying new things and attempting to push the character in new directions. I fault Spider-Man 3 for being a bloated, busy exercise in excess that lost sight of who its hero is.

From this trailer, it’s plainly obvious that director Marc Webb and star Andrew Garfield know exactly who Peter Parker is. And I can’t wait to see their dark new take on everyone’s favorite web-slinger.

Oh, and the mechanical web shooters? Flippin’ awesome.

Next summer is truly the summer of the superhero. DC is launching its Green Lantern franchise with Ryan Reynolds, while Marvel ups the ante with not one but two big-budget hero movies: Captain America and Thor.

The first trailer for Thor is here, and it’s pretty darn amazing looking. Chris Hemsworth looks the part, and the cast is wisely filled out with seasoned actors like Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, and Renee Russo. Kenneth Brannagh is an inspired choice as director, because the film has a terrific look and feel that’s faithful to the comics while making the character and his world accessible to mainstream audiences. I’m impressed. And even more so after checking out these high-res screens I captured from the trailer, over which you can ogle every last detail.

What do you think?

At last, the first Green Lantern trailer is right here. Plus, I’ve grabbed 55 high-res screenshots from it. Gander in awe at the effects, the heroics, and the glipses of Oa.

Green Lantern is being called “the Star Wars of the DC Comics universe,” and the trailer makes it easy to see why. I know a lot of fans aren’t entirely sold on the slightly creepy/organic look of Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern costume (neither am I), but Reynolds does a great job of filling Hal Jordan’s shoes believably.

Director Martin Campbell is untested when it comes to superheroes and science fiction, but he’s got plenty of street cred when it comes to smart action films (Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro). We’ll see how it all comes together next Summer, but for now, this trailer is something we can subject to intense observation over and over.

Update: New video embedded after the first disappeared from YouTube. You can also watch the super-high-res Quicktime version over at Apple.com.

Weta Digital’s Marco Spitoni created this trailer for a pie-in-the-sky CGI movie based on the game Half-Life 2. From what you can see in the video, Spitoni’s a very talented artist, with a strong sense of story, scale, and composition. (And Weta Digital is of course best known as the visual effects studio for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and many other films since.)

A word of warning though, before watching: it will only make you wish that some Hollywood studio would option the Half-Life games. And Hollywood is far from sold on video games making great fodder for film.

This is one of the most brilliant mashups I’ve ever seen. It casts Carl Fredrickson of Up in the Leonardo DiCaprio role in Inception. The most surprising thing about it is how well these two stories — which you’d never in a million years think would work together — mesh so beautifully. It’s a testament to the power of good editing.

Update: The original video embed was disabled due to copyright stuff, yadda yadda… Try this one, which seems to work (at least for the moment).

Update 2: Sigh… It would appear that the powers that be have issued their usual cease-and-desist orders. Bummer. The trailer seriously rocked. I know it was a Comic-Con exclusive, but I can’t imagine why Marvel wouldn’t want it to be seen by pretty much everybody, now that the Con is over. Shall we hope for the best and think that maybe they’re preparing to release it on the Net on their own terms? (Even though it’s more likely that Thor himself cannot withstand the mighty hammer of the lawyers?)

Seriously, this 2.5 minute trailer is more epic than the first six movies combined. Holy. Flipping. Moley. Just carry me to the theater now so I can start camping out.

If you’d prefer to see it in full screen HD (which I highly recommend), head on over to Apple.com/trailers.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like Tarantino but Rodriguez is the more mature director of both. Luckily they worked together regularly, even if on under-rated movies such as Four Rooms or over-hyped movies such as the Grindhouse duo.

This time the honour is Tarantino’s to create a fake trailer for Rodriguez’ upcoming feature film ‘Machete’ but the trailer we are really interested in here at FG is the LEGO version by Youtuber gigerbrick.

LEGO makes everything better. Even Roberto Rodriguez.

I like this style of introducing new comics. Preorder and more preview images here.

From what has been revealed, the special effects of Abomination look particularly good, with him appearing menacing, massive and clearly rampaging through the city.  From the relatively quick glimpse we’ve had of the Hulk, I’m not too impressed so far I must say.  He looks almost too CG – a little bit too fake.

The fact that the trailer has a shot of the machine that I remember seeing from the TV series all those years ago however makes me long to see it.  I genuinely enjoyed the Hulk movie directed by Ang Lee and I’m honestly looking forward to this one.  I just hope that the CG on the Hulk doesn’t disappoint.