I love trailers. I could sit through 20 minutes of them before a movie starts and not even blink. But something started happening a few years ago that really tick me off… trailers that give the whole movie away.
The first trailer I can remember that gave all the main plot points away was The Negotiator starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. I still remember how surprised I was that right there on the screen, in a span of 90 seconds I was just presented with an outline of the whole movie. Jackson is a hostage negotiator for the police, now Jackson gets set up, Jackson himself TAKES hostages, Spacey is another police negotiator that is brought in to negotiate with Jackson, Spacey starts to believe Jackson, Spacey starts working WITH Jackson… they win… the end. Sure enough when i finally saw the film (which was pretty good by the way) that’s exactly how it all played out.
Now comes Paparazzi. The trailer had me interested for about the first 30 seconds… but then I realized it was giving me way too much. Guy becomes celebrity, guy starts getting hounded by paparazzi, guy gets tricked by paparazzi into hitting him just to get the pictures, guy gets convicted for it, paparazzi keep hounding guy until they harm the guy’s family, now guy gets really pissed and starts hunting the paparazzi. Ummm… is there any reason left for me to head to the theater and sit through this one? I now know EVERTHING that happens in the film!
Ok, that’s my little rant for the day. If you can think of other trailers that do this mention them in the comments section below.
