Ten Brilliant Trailers of Terrible Movies
6. The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVrGMnk5E_M
What was in the trailer: Remember when The Matrix first came out and you were blown away by it? Remember watching this trailer and being like, “oh my god, this is gonna be SO AWESOME!”?
What it actually was: If all you cared about were the special effects, you got your money’s worth, but as the movie went on, it was harder and harder to care about the characters and why they were doing what they were doing. Fell pray to the Lost Effect in that it fell in love with its own mythology to the point where it became kind of ridiculous.
7. Cloverfield (2003)
What was in the trailer: A fresh take on an old premise; what Godzilla should have been. An interesting essay on “the mechanism is the message.”
What it actually was: The gimmick of the handhold camera got old really quick, the faux-amaturaism was a loud remind of why professional camera operators are a thing – no one wants to watch a movie that looks like it was filmed by your drunk cousin at a barbeque.
8. Kick-Ass (2010)
What was in the trailer: A juvenile but self-aware superhero movie, over-the-top violence, hilarity in the form of Chloe Moretz mouthing off and killing people, probably at the same time. Her line at the end, beginning with “You just contact the mayor’s office…” totally sealed the deal. Yep, I’ll be watching that movie
What it actually was: This is another movie that I actually liked, but just didn’t live up to the sheer brilliance of the trailer. I felt like the villains in particular were cardboard cutouts, cliche to the point of being laughable. This movie had moments of awesomeness but the trailer gave most of them away.
9. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jU3AimFaz0
What was in the trailer: A stunning cast, a premise that looked like some sort of twisted spiritual successor to MirrorMask or Brazil. Tom Waits playing The Devil. Terry Gilliam directing. How could you go wrong?
What it actually was: Completely uneven. Heath Ledger died midway through filming, and his role was changed to be a “same spirit, different faces” type character, who was played alternately in the film by Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell. Neat, right? Weeeeeeell, in theory. In practice, it’s one of those movies that despite having incredible elements, those elements don’t add up to an incredible film. “A confusing mess” is a bit harsh, but I was left with a lot of questions and the feeling that, while the movie wanted us to sympathize with and root for Parnassus, I never did.
10. Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
What was in the trailer: Maybe. After two disappointing movies, after Jar-Jar, after the most stilted love story since, I don’t even know, after the annoying kid… maybe. Maybe they finally got it right.
What it actually was: They didn’t.
PREDICTING THE FUTURE
Based on this trailer, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this movie won’t live up to the trailer. Really, it’s their fault for having such an amazing cast.
So, let’s get this straight. This movie has: Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones), Summer Glau (River Tam, Firefly), Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse, True Blood), Danny Pudi (Abed Nadir, Community), Joshua Malina (Will Bailey, The West Wing) and one of the McPolye brothers from It’s Always Sunny.
That’s… impressive. And also dangerous. Those actors and characters are some of the nerdiest, most-beloved in all the land. I fear that it’ll be a fun, good movie, and by sheer virtue of the cast, I’m expecting it to be the best movie. We’ll see.
I feel that this article title is very misleading. Most of these films aren’t terrible and some of them are even great. I suppose that it’s just an opinion, but I’m sure there’s a majority out there that would agree that some of these movies are good.
Good list. I would add Terminator Salvation as well
Watchmen, Kick-Ass and the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo are hardly “terrible” movies. Actually I quite enjoyed all three. The only truly horrible movies on this list are Your Highness and Hitchhiker’s Guide.
@Lord Tywin that is why this list was personal, Its in the intro
“Here are my personal top 10 movies that failed to deliver on their trailers. Caveats: It’s a personal list, not an objective one. Some movies on it aren’t ‘bad,’ they just aren’t as amazingly good as I thought they’d be based on the trailer.”
Also Hitchhiker’s wasn’t terrible just misguided. And I haven’t seen Your Highness but I would be willing to say none of the movies on this list were terrible just not as good as they could have been. But it would be hard to name the list top 10 brilliant trailers of decent films but not as good as they could have been: A personal list.
@Lord Tywin Sorry for the hostile sounding comment, your user name made me see red.
This trailer for Alexander got my pumped for the movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COEI8rm0bs0
I was very dissapoint.
Is is weird that I really, really enjoyed all of these movies?
I’m with justin_d and Lord Tywin on this one; the title of this article is slightly misguided. I personally wouldn’t label a list “10 Brilliant trailers for terrible movies” and then in my intro say “It’s a personal list, not an objective one. Some movies on it aren’t ‘bad,’ they just aren’t as amazingly good as I thought they’d be based on the trailer. And finally, spoilers for all movies mentioned.”
What the article title says is that the ten movies on this list are terrible, but had amazing trailers. What the intro, and even the comments on the movies themselves, say is that these ten particular movies had great trailers but the movie itself just wasn’t as great. Indy numerous times in this article even says things like “not that this movie sucked” and “I enjoyed movie x.”
Other than that, great article, and I agree with much of it’s content!
Let’s just hope that Knights of Badassdom comes out AT ALL.
In this case, “terrible” is graded heavily on a curve. I didn’t think Kick-Ass sucked objectively, but the difference between the standard set by the trailer and the movie was quite large. I’ll agree that it’s a slightly misleading title for an article, however, “Ten Movies Whose Trailers Created A Large Disparity In Expected Versus Actual Enjoyability,” seemed a little awkward.
Let’s be clear, while I don’t think all these movies are objectively terrible, I have big problems with all of them. Even the ‘best’ movie on here – Dragon Tattoo, in my opinion – dragged in places and was pretty dull.
I still haven’t watched the rave scene from Reloaded since I saw the movie in the theater.
I know it’s not saying much, but ROTS was the best of the prequels.
I never even heard of the Knights of Badassdom, but they did put together an awesome trailer, hopefully it’ll actually be as good as it looks
The worst part of the Revenge of the Sith trailer was that it presented the idea that Darth Vader was going to be in the movie.
How about ‘The Widest Gap in Quality Between Trailer and Movie’?
Anyway, I submit the 1998 Godzilla. One of the five worst movies I’ve ever seen. But the trailer is cheeky and fun, tweaking Jurassic Park while whetting your appetite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWcpwZNGVxY
Really expected Sucker Punch to be on here, like down towards #1…
@Erik N – That’s actually a pretty solid title. I think people have a point that my original title is misleading.
@Sean Fast – Never saw Sucker Punch; the trailer looked like it could be crazy good or really stupid, and the overwhelming consensus was “really stupid,” so I never watched it.