Shaft Trailer is a Bad Mother… Shut Your Mouth!
The cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about is back – or, rather, both of them are. Warner Bros. has released the trailer for Shaft, the sequel to Shaft, which was itself a sequel to Shaft (not to mention Shaft’s Big Score and Shaft in Africa). The story – which is difficult to discern from the trailer – is about Jessie Usher’s John Shaft Jr., an FBI “cyber expert” whose best friend is killed. Needing a man who would risk his neck for his brother man, Jr. goes to his private eye dad, Samuel L. Jackson’s John Shaft, for help. Soon, original Shaft and uncle to Jackson’s Shaft Richard Roundtree gets in on the action. That’s a whole lot of Shaft. Based on the character created by novelist Ernest Tidyman and directed by Tim Story, Shaft also stars Regina Hall, Alexandra Shipp, and Method Man, and hits theaters on June 14, 2019. Check out the Shaft trailer below…
I was dreading this movie when it was first announced and titled Son of Shaft. My understanding was that it would focus on Usher’s techie FBI agent Shaft, with Samuel L. Jackson and Richard Roundtree in cameo roles similar to Roundtree’s in the 2000 Shaft. That sounded awful, and a misunderstanding of the character (whatever your preferred version may be). To my great surprise, the Shaft trailer puts Jackson front and center (as does the poster), being the cool private eye he became in the 2000 movie. The film seems well aware that Usher’s Shaft is all wrong, and the thrust of the story looks like it will be him learning how to be a real Shaft. I can get on board with that if it’s executed well. In and of itself, the Shaft trailer is a lot of fun, and I’m excited to see what Story does with the franchise. I saw the original Shaft when I was in high school and thought it was okay (though I’d like to see it again), never watched either of the Roundtree sequels, and like the Samuel L. Jackson Shaft very much. The tone of the new Shaft seems to be more in line with the last one; while Roundtree’s film was a hard-boiled Blaxploitation detective thriller, Jackson’s was an odd mixture of gritty crime film and heightened adventure, with Shaft a larger-than-life, almost mythical figure, as opposed to the more stripped-down Shaft of old. This one does seem to emphasize sex more than the one in 2000, though I imagine it won’t go as far as the original. In the end, I’m mostly looking for a fun action/crime movie with plenty of Jackson’s Shaft, and I’m now much more confident that Shaft will deliver.
What did you think of the Shaft trailer? Are you looking forward to the newest entry in the series? Do you think they’ll come up with a villain as fun and cool as People Hernandez? Let us know in the comments and stick around Geeks + Gamers for more movie news and reviews!
