Voice of Reason #11: Trailer Trash

The Wolverine bares all in his latest trailer

"Right, that's it." I close my Internet browser and turn to my girlfriend in a huff; "There's no need to see that film now. They showed the whole film in the trailer."

Know the feeling? Ever felt that a trailer has shown too much? Then dear fellow, read on...

Don't get me wrong, I love a good trailer. Everyone knows that if done right, a good trailer can sell a movie that could potentially be a huge pile of crap. Believe me, I was conned into watching the terrible second Transformers because of half decent trailer. It has however, come to my attention that trailers of late can give away a little more than you would like.

Iron Man 3 was one film that managed to hold
something back; other studios should take note.

Cast your mind back to 2012 (if you can remember back that far that is); the big summer blockbusters comprised of the following: The Avengers, Prometheus, The Amazing Spider-man and The Dark Knight Rises. For months beforehand we were bombarded with endless teaser trailers, full-length trailers, release trailers and TV spots.

You just knew that The Avengers would culminate in a humongous New York throwdown with that massive alien snake thing. It wasn't hard to guess how things were going to go tits up for the crew of the Prometheus and everyone knew from the outset that Bane would get one over on Batman before isolating Gotham from the rest of the world.

The same can be said for each of this year's summer heavyweights as well. Iron Man 3 practically based its entire marketing campaign around Tony Stark's house going for a swim in the Pacific Ocean. You can't watch five minutes of television or click on any webpage at the moment without being bombarded by images of the Enterprise coming crashing down or Zac Snyder's Man of Steel taking flight. Don't even get me started on all of the promos for The Wolverine.

Every now and again a film has the ability to genuinely surprise me; I certainly saw no indication of Iron Man 3's big reveal in any promotional material. But I can't shake the nagging feeling that film trailers give away just a little too much in their attempts to show off all of their flashing pyrotechnics and CGI set-pieces.

All I ask is this; please Hollywood, hold something back to peak our curiosity. Just chill your beans and let the audience try and guess what is going to happen next. A film like The Avengers or Iron Man 3 is going to sell itself, without needing to throw every single explosion into a five-minute long trailer.