Top 10 Times Movie Trailers Lied to You

The trailer for “Infinity War” contains a few small changes that are different from their movie counterpart moments. It’s nothing egregious by any means, but it’s still interesting to note. For example, the trailer depicts the heroes, including Hulk, running towards the screen in a forest environment. In the movie, this scene takes place in an open field, and the Hulk is not present. It also depicts Thanos having two stones on Titan, whereas in the movie he has four. Finally, there’s a shot of Bruce Banner standing beside the Hulkbuster arm which does not appear in the movie. Most of these were done to prevent spoilers, so we suppose we can accept it...

While this is a comedy, it is certainly not a family friendly comedy. In fact, it was originally written and filmed as a dark mafia comedy, but producers changed it at the last second to a PG-rated family comedy through some sly editing and CGI. This change in style is reflected in the movie’s marketing, which contains a lot of wacky hijinks involving a terrible CGI kangaroo - which also happens to talk, dance, and rap. However, the kangaroo isn’t in the movie nearly as much as the trailer suggests, and it only talks in one very brief dream sequence. It was a blatant act of false advertising - and it worked, as the movie opened at #1 over the MLK weekend.

Anyone who has actually seen “Observe and Report” will tell you that it’s essentially a comedic version of “Taxi Driver.” Seth Rogen stars as a mentally unhinged and unstable mall cop who tries to stop a flasher from tormenting his mall. The movie’s tone and content is also deeply unwelcoming, as it’s a very dark story filled with scenes of shootings, drug use, and worse. In other words, it’s not Judd Apatow’s version of “Paul Blart.” Unfortunately, that is exactly what the trailers portrayed. But what the trailer depicts as typical Rogan wackiness is actually the dialogue and actions of a deeply unhinged, delusional, and violent protagonist.

This masterpiece from director Nicolas Winding Refn is a very slow, very methodical film involving a getaway driver and his involvement in the personal life of his neighbor, Irene. Like most of Refn’s movies, it favors style, music, and tone over story, offering up gorgeous visuals and a lumbering pace that may have those coming to see a “Fast and the Furious”-style action movie checking their watches. Why “Fast and the Furious?” Because that’s exactly how the trailer portrayed the film. It took the ten minutes of action that is in the movie and filled the trailer with it, making the movie appear as some high-octane, pulse-pounding mobster flick.

Will Smith is one of the biggest stars in the world, so naturally people want to see him. It also helped that Smith was going through a career resurgence at this time, having just starred in “Men in Black 3” after four years of silence. The trailer made “After Earth” seem like some epic sci-fi extravaganza starring Smith and his son Jayden, complete with Smith’s voiceover running throughout the entire length of the trailer. In reality, Smith is a lesser presence in the movie, as his character breaks his legs and sits around in the spaceship. The trailer also hid the involvement of director M. Night Shyamalan, who was going through a record slump at the time of the movie’s release.

This is an instance of an intentionally dishonest trailer making the movie even better. The trailer promises some creepy supernatural link between the recently deceased grandmother and her orange sweater-clad granddaughter. It also presents the film as a ghost story, complete with creepy but cliché declarations like “She isn’t gone!” The movie barely involves ghosts, but focuses instead on the occult and Annie’s severe mental degradation. The trailer also makes the granddaughter seem far more prevalent than she actually is, as the movie throws a major curveball at the audience about thirty minutes in. It’s one of the most shocking sequences in recent memory, especially if you had seen the trailer beforehand.

This movie about male strippers was directed by Steven Soderbergh, an intelligent, Academy Award-winning director behind beloved movies like the “Ocean’s” trilogy, “Erin Brokovich,” and “Contagion.” Judging by the trailer, you wouldn’t know that such an acclaimed director was behind the movie, as it mostly focuses on shirtless, sweaty, muscular male bodies dancing to music and walking on the beach, all backed by Rihanna’s fun and bouncy “We Found Love.” However, the movie was far better than its relatively shallow trailer would suggest, and there’s maybe five minutes of dancing in the whole movie. As such, it was often criticized by those who just wanted to watch Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey strut around shirtless for two hours.

We’re starting to see a pattern of trailers condensing five or ten minutes of screentime and making it seem like the entire movie. “Godzilla” fans were also unfortunate victims of this ploy. Bryan Cranston was hot hot hot around 2014 owing to the ending of “Breaking Bad,” so he was peppered throughout the trailer of “Godzilla.” However, he’s only in roughly one third of the movie, and the real protagonist is Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Ford Brody. OK, whatever, as long as there’s a lot of good Godzilla action! Well, there isn’t, because he’s in it for maybe ten minutes. This bait and switch was repeated with “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” whose trailer made Channing Tatum seem far more prevalent and important than he actually was.

It’s fitting that both “Spring Breakers” and “Magic Mike” were released in 2012, as they both pulled similar stunts in their advertising. Like “Magic Mike,” “Spring Breakers” focused on the loud and the shallow - namely, James Franco hamming it up with a silver grill and lots of attractive ladies in skimpy bikinis. And while it certainly delivered on that front, the movie was also far weirder and more artful than the trailer would suggest, with some even calling it an allegory for young people’s problematic obsession with shallow pop culture. The colorful bikinis aren’t the point, despite what the trailer would have us believe.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

The Movie Isn’t About Liam Neeson Fist-Fighting Wolves
“The Grey” (2011)

They Forgot to Remind Audiences That “Sweeney Todd” Is a Musical
“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (2007)

Really Not Much Romantic About This Movie
“Passengers” (2016)

Movie About Cannibalism Turned Into a Wacky Screwball Comedy
“Ravenous” (1999)

Actually More Teenage Introspection, Less Sexy Megan Fox
“Jennifer’s Body” (2009)

The DCEU was in a bad place in the mid-2010s, and it consistently fell short of Marvel’s high bar. Part of the criticism stemmed from the series’ dark and humorless tone. Enter “Suicide Squad,” which promised to be more fun - complete with bright neon colors, loads of humor, and Jared Leto’s gleefully unhinged Joker, even Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It was clearly a ploy to snag the playful Marvel crowd, as the movie itself was nothing like that. It was dark, it was dour, the humor that was present was tonally inconsistent with the rest of the movie, and above all, it was boring. Not to mention Leto’s Joker - “underwhelming” doesn’t even begin to describe it.