Sketched List: 15 Awesome Trailers, Bad Movies

Ugh. This image is a mess. Much like these movies! Zing!

Hey there fellow movie lovers! In this downturn of recent movies to review, I've been thinking over movies that had awesome trailers that really got you pumped, but couldn't follow through with a solid movie. This isn't a comprehensive list as I'm sure it would be much longer. These are just the ones that A) I remember the trailers and B) I really felt let down by them.

15) Franklyn

This comes in at number 15 because I'm sure a lot of you guys haven't even heard of this. And rightly so. The trailer premiered a couple years ago, then it supposedly came out, then nothing. Why? It looks like V for Vendetta mixed with Watchmen mixed with steampunk! I picked up a copy at the library and well...yeah. Don't bother.

It's about four different intertwining stories, three of which are in modern day London(a doctor looking for a son, a guy with an imaginary friend, and a girl who keeps trying to kill herself), and one, the most interesting one, takes place in a strange fantasy world where everyone is forced to believe a religion, and the masked man is the lone atheist in the town. Sounds awesome, right?

Until you realize SPOILER ALERT he's actually a mental patient and he's dreaming up this whole thing. END SPOILER ALERT. You don't even get to see it 1/4th of the movie. If that had been the whole movie, it would have been completely worth it.

14) Shane Acker's 9

Not to say it was a horrible movie, it just didn't live up to the hype that was accompanying it. At the time, people were saying it looked like a cross between Half-Life and Little Big Planet. And yes, the visuals and style were amazingly impressive. The story that went along with it, had much to be desired. It was adapted from a short animation, and it really shows. Sure they threw some big voice talent at it and gave it better graphics, but it was just one fight sequence connected by another with a flat ending.

13) Cop out

A buddy cop comedy with Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan? Directed by Kevin Smith?! How can that fail?! When you don't have a good plot or pacing, that's how. And Tracey Morgan, it's found out, can only be taken for so long. The funniest part about this was the flame war that erupted between Kevin Smith and the critics who reviewed his movie. Do not get on Kevin Smith's bad side.

12) SuckerPunch

Let's see, hot chicks, robot samurai, steampunk nazi zombies, burlesque, guns, swords, and all done by the guy who did 300 and Watchmen? Many thought this was just going to be a fun summer movie, but what we got wasn't even that. We got Zack Snyder taking Slo-mo to the extreme and trying to uplift women through exploitation. There are some who think this is his masterpiece and an insurmountable more saying he couldn't have treated women worse if he was Frank Miller. But really, it was just meh.

11) Battle L.A.

Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Aliens, lots of action, and slow, sad music. You can't go wrong with that. Or I guess you can. One of the movies labeled as this year's District 9, it fell flat as a mediocre action flick with little to no story. Sad and ironic that this is one of the few movies in which they don't kill off Michelle Rodriguez.

10) Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

They promised us Soundwave and Devestator, and they gave us robot balls and the racist twins. Any Transfans that were sill hanging on from the first Transformers movie were gone. The graphics were shoddy and unfinished, the story was nonsensical, and oh hey, robots can be human now? And no one cared? No one cared. Is anyone still holding out hope for the next one?

9) Resident Evil 2

Full disclosure: I LOVED the first Resident Evil. It was creepy, it had enough of the series but still was something new(a prequel?!), it had Michelle Rodriguez and music done by Marilyn Manson. When I first saw trailers for the second one with the entire city infected and glimpses of Nemesis(Squee!) I had a fit of screaming joy. That quickly turned into a fit of writhing pain when they started showing trailers of Milla Jovovich running down a building. I though, "Oh well, there's a chance it could still be good, right?"

But I was wrong. Dead wrong(because they're zombies!). Nemesis looked ridiculous, the action was too over the top for a horror flick, and some of the fight sequences just look liked butt. And then the third one came out and they turned her into a jedi with a clone army. And in the forth one I assume she's in the Matrix fighting Val Kilmer?

8) Your Highness

I was actually going to write a review of this, but I just didn't care enough. The trailer made it look so funny, but sadly, it's one of those movies where all the best jokes have already been seen in the trailer(specifically, the red band trailer). More than that, it felt like it was trying to be a fairly straightforward adventure flick and a comedy but failed at both(much like The director's last movie, Pineapple Express). If it wasn't for the vulgarity which did next to nothing, it might have been a close cousin to The Princess Bride. As it stands, it's more like Bride's creepy vulgar uncle that its mom doesn't like it talking to.

7) Ninja Assassin

The guys who did The Matrix and V for Vendetta do a movie about Ninjas?! Awesome! And it was. In parts. Very few parts. Some parts are extremly bloody and satisfying death scenes. The rest of the movie is made up of bland boring exposition and backstory.

6) Ang Lee's Hulk

Everyone was super excited to see the new cgi Hulk with its incredible graphics(at the time) but what they got were mutated poodles, a ridiculous Nick Nolte as Bruce's father, an unfathomable story, and sadly, just not enough smashing. But hey, I do have to say I'd prefer Jennifer Connoley over Liv Tyler any day.

5) Wolverine Origins

Oh this looks just ok I gue-DID WOLVERINE JUST TAKE DOWN A HELICOPTER?! With all that, explaining Wolverine's origins, and the inclusion of Emma Frost, Deadpool, and Gambit, it seemed like all the bad blood from The Last Stand would be wiped clean. But alas, it was not. A ridiculous and convoluted story, and completely butchering all the characters lead to this flop of a movie. Really, it's a contest to see who was done worst. But it did lead to the best one-liner in action history. So who's ready for First Class?

4) Clash of the Titans

You can't tell me this trailer didn't get you completely pumped. It STILL gets me pumped and I even saw the movie! How do they do that? Everyone was waiting for this saying it was going to be the movie to usher in 3D. People were excited to see more of Sam Worthington and wow did that Kraken ever look badass. Sadly, it was merely a collection of fights strung together with a poor performance from Worthington. It's ok Sam Worthington, we still love you.

3) Spiderman 3

Man was I ever pumped for this. Venom, Sandman, and Harry Osborn as a hoverboard jedi? I remember my friends and I went to a packed Friday showing(something I rarely ever do with movies) and had to sit in the very up front seats. And then I got a face full of Peter Parker thrusting his crotch and flicking his hair. This is the one that killed the series. They packed way too much into it, Harry's betrayal, Venom, Sandman, Peter getting married, Gwen Stacey for whatever reason, and messed up so many intricate things. Why is Sandman the moral compass of the movie? Why would Peter Parker act like an ass before touching the symbiot? Why would Jonah EVER take it easy on the yelling?

2) Matrix Reloaded

"One of the best trailers ever" it says. How good? It makes me want to watch the movie again. I might actually do that.

Everyone was so hyped after the first Matrix became a sleeper hit, we were all expecting more of the same! And uh...boy did we get it? Well yes, there was more and intense fighting, but the story was complex and convoluted to the nth degree. I think the biggest problem was that the first one had such original and ground breaking ideas(the intense fighting, the oracle program, Agent Smith, Trinity resurrects Neo, Neo can fly), that instead of making more original ideas, they just stacked to heavily on the ones they already had(ridiculously intense fighting, the frenchman, more Agent Smith, Neo resurrects trinity, Neo flies all the time everywhere). It still has some fun action sequences, but it just doesn't hold up. Seriously, a drill. That was the machine's big idea? Clearly, they will one day rule us all.

1) The Phantom Menace

I didn't know anyone when I was a kid who wasn't pissing their pants in anticipation to see this. It had aliens, a robot army, tons of lightsaber battling, and did that guy have two blades? WHAT. There was even a very funny movie made about a group of kids driving cross country to see it before it came out. And then we all went to see it. And time passed. and then we realized something.

It sucked.

From too much space politics, to too much over explanation of the force, to too damn much Jar Jar Binks, it did not live up to our massive expectations. It had some good points, which I may save for another blog post, but overall, we were disappointed. But hey, great trailer.