As if news that the wonderful Eddie Redmayne might be pulling on Newt Scamander’s monster-wrangling gear in the new Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them wasn’t enough of a Hollywood fun-bomb for one day, the powers that be have uploaded fresh trailers for two of the most talked-about genre movies of 2015 in the space of a few hours. So which one gets Week in Geek hotter under the collar on the issues that matter?

Geek-cool rating of cast members

The new trailer for Ant-Man features the fabulous Michael Douglas, Lost and The Hobbit’s Evangeline Lily, and Judd Apatow favourite Paul Rudd in the title role – so, not bad going. But even if he hasn’t done anything remotely great since stepping down as the Governator, it’s hard not to feel the hairs on the back of one’s neck stand to attention when everyone’s favourite musclebound Austrian starts cracking the one-liners in trailer two for Terminator: Genisys. And Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke, who is playing Sarah Connor, couldn’t be hotter right now if she chose to film the next season of the fantasy show on the surface of Mercury. So the winner is Terminator by a cybernetic nose.
Ant-Man: 7; Terminator: Genisys: 10

Comedy moment you saw coming but which still raises a chuckle

January’s debut trailer for Ant-Man had no one convinced, with its comic payoffs pulled straight from Guardians of the Galaxy and vapid dialogue that felt like the result of too many rewrites (no doubt due in some part to the loss of the original director, Edgar Wright, last year). This time around, there’s a bit more fun to be had. Douglas’s Hank Pym makes a decent wisecrack or two; there is a cheap but amusing slapstick gag in which Lily punches Rudd in the face when he’s least expecting it, and there’s a cute bit with Thomas the Tank Engine which acknowledges the silliness of a movie about tiny battling superheroes. And yet Terminator comes out on top once again, thanks to a couple of excellent Arnie moments: the new T-800’s rictus-grinned attempt at social pleasantries, and a nice line in deadpan windscreen-smashing.
Ant-Man: 5; Terminator: Genisys: 8

CGI standard

If all CGI was as fabulous as that pioneered in 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, no one would ever complain about CGI in the movies. But it’s difficult to see much progress in Genisys: almost 25 years on, the old liquid, shapeshifting T-1000 look is still being trotted out, and shots of post-apocalyptic Earth resemble something out of a computer game. The trailer for Ant-Man, meanwhile, looks photoreal enough, bar a few shonky shots of Rudd’s insect aides.
Ant-Man: 7; Terminator: Genisys: 6

Consideration for spoiler-haters

Neither trailer does particularly well here, it must be said. The Ant-Man one gives away the fact that villain Corey Stoll ends up as Ant-Man’s tiny nemesis Yellowjacket, while the Terminator trailer appears to reveal the entire plot in only two-and-a-half minutes. Genisys’s big twist seems to be that John Connor turns up in 1984 as a part-human, part-machine version of himself. It’s a giveaway that surely should have been held back for the multiplexes – but then, they did call this one the “payoff trailer”. Argh.
Ant-Man: 4; Terminator: Genisyis: 0

Ability to avoid referencing cool things from past movies

Once again, both trailers are on shaky ground. Does Ant-Man’s suit really require the same hydraulic “whoosh” sound that signals Iron Man is about to go leaping into the ether? And must the size-shifting superhero land with the same fist-to-ground pose? What was wrong with the original comic-book Ant-Man’s magic shrinking serum? Terminator is even worse: we get the ubiquitous “I’ll be back” moment, just in case anyone was worrying Arnie might not say those three words, and the “come with me if you want to live” line is also trotted out for good measure – this time by Clarke’s Sarah Connor. Dear oh dear.
Ant-Man: 5; Terminator: Genisys: 3

Final score

Ant-Man looks as if it might be Marvel’s first major dud since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, but there’s still hope yet: who’s betting that the brilliant Thomas the Tank Engine scene was in the original script by Wright and Joe Cornish? As for Terminator: Genisys, there’s an unmistakable spoilers-be-damned desperation to the promo. The trailer certainly does its job of ramping up excitement, but you wonder if producers are letting all their big guns off early because they know that the reviews are going to be rubbish.
Ant-Man: 28 Terminator: Genisys: 27
Ant-Man wins – just!