Here at NextRound we’re so confident in our movie judgment abilities we can tell you whether or not an upcoming movie is going to be any good based solely on its trailer. Our ability to do this may or may not be related to our inability to score passes to movie screenings. Regardless, this route is more our speed.

First up: “Leatherheads”! Releasing April 4th. Starring George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, and Jim from “The Office”.

Here’s the trailer:

And now here’s our breakdown…

Football in movies is a good thing. Maybe even a better thing in it’s most primitive form.

Clooney the actor. Do the math and you’ll find 70% of George Clooney movies are in the “good” to “really fucking good” range. You have to like those odds. Plus, “Leatherheads” feels very akin to arguably the best movie Clooney ever made: “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”. There’s no denying the dude thrives in throw back roles where his primary job is to deadpan lines like, “You’re the injured party.”

Jim from “The Office”. We hear “the next Tom Hanks” line used often when referring to slightly goofy but really likeable actors. Well, since there seems to be a competition, we’re casting our lot with John Krasinski as the next Hanks. We like the guy and think “Leatherheads” could be his jumping off point to a solid feature film career. (Note: Unless we find out he talked Mandy Moore into the reverse degrader in her trailer during filming, we’re going to pretend that flick he did with Robin Williams never happened).

You’ll have to get over how old Clooney is. “Leatherheads” is a clear cut case of necessary suspended reality. Let’s all agree beforehand that A) George Clooney is too GD old to be playing tackle football and B) it’s your own problem if you harp on that detail and let it ruin the movie for you.

Potential to make fun of Princeton. From the trailer we’ve gathered Jim from “The Office’s” character went to Princeton. This opens up potential for a lot of “college boy” lines. We hope they’re exploited.

Renee Zellweger kind of sucks. She peaked in hotness in or around the turn of the century, and even then she wasn’t all that hot. She’s an OK actress, but teeters on annoying on a pretty regular basis. We’re willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in this flick for successfully dropping “the world’s tallest midget” line in the trailer.

The Rick Reilly Factor. We don’t find Rick Reilly particularly funny or entertaining so seeing that he wrote the book the movie is based on is a little troubling.

Clooney the director. Clooney’s acting percentage is 70%, too bad his directing percentage is only 50% (one flick pretty good, even if a little boring; the other flick kind of weird and boring).

NextRound’s Conclusion: Based solely on a two minute trailer and our preconceived opinions of all involved, we plan on seeing “Leatherheads” (maybe even in the theater) and expect it to be pretty good.

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