Suckered again

Movie trailers are proving to be a major downfall for me. They are so misleading that I keep getting fooled into thinking that the movie itself must be as great as the trailer. The latest movie trailer I fell victim too was for the final Hobbit movie.

After the first two movies, I swore I wasn't going to see the third in the theater. I wasn't going to spend my money for more cockamamie substories that don't exist in the book and don't seem to have any purpose in the movie. I wasn't going to put up with any more physics-defying CGI action scenes that left me feeling like I was transitioning between movie and video game, forcing me to suspend my belief to the breaking point (in case you wondered, my belief broke).

But then I saw the trailer. And I thought, "Okay, well, maaaaaaybe this one will be different. That trailer looks pretty good," thereby forgetting one of the prime rules of trailer watching: never assume the movie will be anything like the trailer.

Of course the trailer looked good! They left out all the dumb, bad stuff, and only showed the 2 minutes of really cool, good plot. And I fell for it! Again!!!!!

Another 2 hours of movie littered with fragments of subplots that never develop into an actual storyline, all the while not really dealing with the actual storyline to the extent it deserves. More physics defying CGI scenes (spoiler here, but NO, Legolas is not going to be able to use falling rocks as a staircase. You see, he is falling at the same rate as the rocks). Two hours packed with absurdly unbelievable action scenes that jarred the mind so much (even if you don't get physics, etc., your brain realizes something about that just doesn't work) that you couldn't really get sucked into the actual movie, because everything signaled to your conscious self that "This isn't real." (This is really poor movie-making. Absolutely no movie magic happening there).

But, they did do one thing incredibly right: The costumes and sets. Despite how ridiculous the movie was and how non-interested in the plot I felt, there was a certain fascination during the whole movie for me, and I kept trying to figure out what it was, when I realized it was the costumes. They were amazing. Very authentic. (Yes, you can have authentic fictional costumes. So just don't even argue). And of course the scenes were pretty awesome.

And even though the movie itself was pretty absurd, it did have some great moments, some good acting when the script actually let there be acting, rather than just a showcase of athletic prowess, and the visual images (other than the over the top, unreal fight sequences) were fantastic. And I guess I knew that that's what it would be, deep down, so I must have really wanted to see those visuals. In which case, I would say I got my money's worth.

But, if that's not what you're in the market for, don't give in to the lure of the trailer!!!!