So I thought it would be fun to try and come up with a list of the top 5 misleading trailers of all-time. Just to specify, by “all-time”, I mean the ones that I can remember, and by misleading, I don’t mean misleading as in “the trailer looked awesome, but the movie sucked.” I’m thinking more along the lines of a trailer making a movie look like a funny buddy road trip, but the movie turned out to be a weepy gay love story where everyone dies of AIDS.
To help me in this endeavor, I posted this topic over at the Something Awful forum, and got some great suggestions.
Anyway, here’s the list I ended up with. Please feel free to tell us some others I may have missed, or to just tell us your general opinion on the matter.
5) Mean Girls
What the trailer implies: Yet another asinine teen flick you couldn’t pay me to watch, where some bitchy girl steals the boy Lindsay Lohan likes.
What the movie actually is: A hilarious and frighteningly accurate look at how completely awful teenage girls (and teenagers in general) can actually be. It’s a film that anyone who ever suffered through the horror of going to high school (that’s everyone, right?) can appreciate. Plus it features Lohan when she was curvy, red-haired, and not so full of herself.
4) The Family Stone
What the trailer implies: A slightly goofy romantic chick flick that centers around Sarah Jessica Parker’s character being introduced to her boyfriend’s family, who don’t exactly welcome her with open arms. Also included: grown-up siblings slapping each other, messy food mishaps, Parker crashes a car into a tree, Claire Danes falls off a bus. Hilarious!
What the movie actually is: The movie does indeed center around a family’s icy reception to Parker’s character, but not for the hilarious reasons the trailer implies. Sure she’s uptight and high maintenance, but she’s not nearly so awful as to warrant the treatment she gets. So why is this family so on edge? Oh wait, Diane Keaton has cancer? She’s stopped responding to treatments? This is revealed at Christmastime? Who doesn’t see where this is going now? The movie suddenly takes a turn for the morose, as a family of adult children cope with the inevitable loss of their beloved matriarch. I am woman enough to admit I shed a few tears at the end of this movie. But Claire Danes falling off a bus was still pretty funny.
3) The Prestige
What the trailer implies: A pair of Victorian-era magicians begin as friends, then turn into rivals as they attempt to discover the secrets behind each other’s tricks.
What the movie actually is: The pair of magicians begin as friends, then turn into rivals when one accidentally kills the other’s wife in a magic trick gone awry. They then spend the rest of the movie trying to kill each other in the most brutal game of one-upmanship I’ve ever seen. Then there’s a bizarre twist in the middle (which I won’t spoil) that turns the whole movie into a sort of sci-fi thriller. Very good movie, but not quite the magical mystery romp I was expecting.
2) Pan’s Labyrinth
What the trailer implies: A young girl unhappy with the state of her life enters a strange fantasy world on a quest to prove that she is their long-lost princess. It’s like Harry Potter en español.
What the movie actually is: Yes, she does go on a quest to prove she is the lost princess, but the bulk of the movie is about the Spanish Civil War, the fantasy world is only maybe 25% of the movie. It is extremely dark and, at times, graphically violent; definitely not a fun fantasy film to bring the kids to. I don’t want to give too much away since this is a relatively recent movie, but the captain is one of the most truly terrifying movie villains I can think of. ‘Sadistic’ doesn’t seem like a strong enough word to describe him. Some scenes are more Marathon Man than Harry Potter (you know what I’m talking about).
1) Bridge to Terabithia
What the trailer implies: The Chronicles of Narnia for younger children.
What the movie actually is: As stated best by the Something Awful member who suggested it: “The movie is a fairly accurate remake of a book for tweens about growing up, death, and loss of innocence. The fantasy seen in the trailer is the only fantasy in the entire film.”
Let us know if you can think of any other that made the list.
And if you liked this, check out some more Trailer Fun:
The Top 15 Trailer Remixes of All-Time
The Top 15 Trailer Mashups of All-Time
[…] The (Very Unofficial) Top 5 Most Misleading Trailers of All-Time […]
There is an interesting distinction between Terebithia and Narnia. The name of Terabithia, the imaginary kingdom, sounds very much like Terebinthia, a Narnian island, in the C. S. Lewis books, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Katherine Paterson who was the writer of Bridge to Terebithia acknowledges that Terabithia is likely derived from Terebinthia the island in Narnia. However, C.S. Lewis probably got that name from the Terebinth tree in the Bible.
Just a tidbit of historical info…
I’d also nominate ‘The Siege’.
What the trailer implies: A big-scale Bruce Wilis action picture that features Bruce locking all of Manhattan in a cage and blowing up busses.
What the movie actually is: A smart and deep political thriller about terrorism, it’s practitioners and what lies behind their acts. And Bruce has what’s really a bit part.
I need to nominate “Georgia Rule”.
Implies: Typical chick flick, mostly comedy, where the teenager goes to her strict relative’s house to live, learns to respect people and herself.
What happens: Becomes a movie about sexual abuse.