Trailer Blazer: 'World Trade Center,' 'Devil Wears Prada'

Big stars wreak havoc in today’s batch of movie trailers:

World Trade Center (Aug. 11) I still haven’t been able to bring myself to go see United 93, so I wasn’t really looking forward to this. Plus, the story is disturbing enough without Nicolas Cage (pictured) looking frighteningly skeletal as one of two Port Authority cops awaiting rescue from beneath the rubble of the Twin Towers. Still, no one does chaos like Oliver Stone, and the trailer suggests an uplifting ending. It looks like many observers’ fears that Stone would polticize or conspiracy-theorize the Trade Center collapse were unfounded — guess that sort of movie will come later.

The Devil Wears Prada (June 30) In this exclusive AOL Movies clip (a three-minute excerpt posing as a trailer), Meryl Streep manages to be menacing as the fearsome fashion-mag editor without raising her voice, and Stanley Tucci steals scenes as her majordomo. But then there’s unfortunate Anne Hathaway, who is shown interviewing for a job as Streep’s assistant. She seems stuck playing the same Smart Girl in Need of a Makeover role she played in the first Princess Diaries. Where’s the wit, the snap, the comedy, the lovingly photographed shoes? This excerpt makes the movie seem not nearly as much fun as it should be.

Gridiron Gang (September) How polite of The Rock to add a personal introduction to the beginning of this trailer. Because the clip promises an inspirational sports drama that seems otherwise drained of personality, with the wrestler barely lifting an eyebrow to play a football coach to gangbangers imprisoned in juvie. (It’s a kiddie Longest Yard.) Only costar Xzibit seems to show flashes of life. Director Phil Joanou has made movies that are dark and noirish (State of Grace, Final Analysis), but he, too, seems to have checked all personal style at the door.