Jake, Natalie and Tobey Star In Lionsgate's Madea Comes Home From the War

It's been a bounteous day for new trailers here at Movieline, beginning with Megan Fox's penetrating work as a razor-toothed, castrating cheer-demon in Jennifer's Body, and continuing with the perfume-infused froggerie that is Coco Before Chanel. The third and last preview to withstand the scrutiny of our esteemed Two-Minute Verdict judging panel is for Jim Sheridan's Brothers -- a domestic love triangle in which Spider-Man and the guy-who-threatened-to-replace-Spider-Man fight for the affections of Queen Amidala.

The movie itself looks promising, though its comely stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire deserve better than this terrible trailer, which gives it the cheap veneer of a Lifetime movie that took a wrong turn into A-listville instead of the finely shaded character study it probably is. Chapter One begins with the burgeoning romance of presumed-war-widow Portman and her dreamy-eyed brother-in-law, after she gives up on ever finding the husband who's gone missing while on duty somewhere in Afghanistan.

But with a jukebox switch from go-to shmaltz-rockers The Fray to U2's wistful anti-war paean "Bad," the devastating second act clicks into motion. The fallen soldier is risen, returning home in the form of the distressingly gaunt Maguire. Bono's soothing strains soon give way to the repetitive sound of car door slams meant to ratchet up trailer tension. Things ultimately boil over when one of the adorable moppets blubbers something half-intelligible at the dinner table about Natalie preferring to sleep with their uncle (who smells of leather and chocolate) and not Tobey (who smells of dirty underpants and processed cheese). This leads Tobey to destroy the kitchen with a golf club, before murdering the sky with a handgun.

Verdict: All aboard for a three-hankie Gyllenweepie.