Sometimes, seeing the trailers for upcoming features can be the best part of going to
the theater.
But as we all know, the final product can be very different from the way it's portrayed
in the promo clips—in fact, sometimes, trailers flat out lie to us.
Here are some of the worst offenders.
Snow Dogs
It sure looks like it has all the hallmarks of a classic live-action talking animal movie:
it's made by Disney, shares a producer with George of the Jungle and Charlotte's Web,
and the trailer even ends with a clip of wisecracking dogs.
But viewers expecting 2002's Snow Dogs to be a raucous fish-out-of-water story with
funny canines and copious pratfalls were given… well, pretty much that, only without any talking
animals.
Anyone expecting Air Bud went home disappointed, as the scene where the dogs mock Cuba Gooding
Jr.'s character is actually from a dream sequence.
"You really stepped in it this time!"
Kangaroo Jack
The blatantly misleading trailer for Snow Dogs was a direct inspiration for Kangaroo
Jack's infamously misleading marketing, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Inspired by the earlier film, producer Jerry Bruckheimer made Jack look less like a dark
mafia comedy and more like a light family friendly romp focused on kangaroo-related
hijinx.
"I said a hip, hop, beh hibbie, to the hip hip hop and you don't stop the rock to the
bang bang boogie."
Like Snow Dogs, the talking animal scene is just a dream, but the trailer doesn't make
that clear.
A rapping kangaroo, combined with repeated shots of the lead characters screaming and
pratfalling, helped to convince parents that the movie was goofy family-friendly fare.
Instead, thousands of kids found some surprisingly lewd humor and a baffling plot about adult
friendships and failed dreams.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Yes, it's been musical on Broadway for decades, but the trailer for Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd:
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street does everything it can to hide that fact.
A clip of Johnny Depp talk-singing is buried within a preview that makes the gothic musical
look more like a combination of Dexter, The Count of Monte Cristo, and an action thriller.
Why the trailer does everything it can to hide its musical roots is anyone's guess,
especially when it looks identical to every other Tim Burton movie without it.
Observe and Report
An unrelenting, in-depth examination of a profoundly disturbed individual, 2009's Observe
and Report is like Taxi Driver filtered through the madcap antics of Seth Rogen's everyman
comedy stylings.
But you'd be hard-pressed to tell by watching the trailer, which makes it look like a stealth
sequel to Paul Blart: Mall Cop—or at least a rated-R parody of it.
The clip looks like it's advertising yet another story of a schlubby guy in a crummy job finding
worth and acceptance in proving himself a hero, but the actual plot of the movie is
closer to the drug-filled last days of a genuine psychopath.
Godzilla
2014 was a mourning period for fans of Walter White's misadventures on the popular TV show
Breaking Bad—it had been off for a year by that point, and fans were missing Bryan
Cranston's nuanced portrayal of a beleaguered family man making huge sacrifices for the
ones he loves.
But then the trailer for Godzilla arrived, showcasing Cranston once again as a beleaguered
family man, this time struggling to stop the famous monster.
Unfortunately, the trailer was clearly cut once the marketing team realized how popular
Cranston had become.
He's only in the movie for just more than a quarter of the runtime — a major bait-and-switch.
Ravenous
Going by the trailer, 1999's Ravenous looks like a screwball comedy, or a Troma film that
was stuck in the vault for 20 years.
What audiences missed out on was an audacious horror-comedy, with a remarkable performance
by Guy Pearce.
The movie's take on cannibalism deserves to go down as a formative horror text, but it's
hard to convince anyone to watch after they've seen the trailer.
On the bright side, unlike many of the other movies on this list, the only lie this trailer
is telling is that the movie isn't fantastic.
Drive
Director Nicolas Refn's Drive is a slow, thorough examination of crime and career criminals,
wrapped in layers of allegory and striking cinematography.
Which is why it's so ridiculous that the trailer makes it look like a Fast and the Furious
flick, all pulse-pounding chase sequences and fight scenes.
The marketing was so misleading that one woman even sued the distributor, complaining that
the movie had "very little driving."
All that's missing is Vin Diesel shouting about "family."
"There's always room for family."
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