This may not be the trailer for the worst movie of all time, in fact I can guarantee it, but God almighty does this trailer depress me. It's not so much the content, which reeks of mediocrity, but the fact that this film is directed by Ron Howard, the man who brought us Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man and Frost/Nixon. This film is called... The Dilemma.
Ron Howard has directed comedies before, and well (Parenthood comes to mind), but often when he goes down into that well he comes up relatively empty. This is because that, as a director, he ends up being just about as good as the material he's given. That's not a knock on him, because when given solid material he has made great films. It's just that when he's given absolute crap he's usually unable to elevate it despite his considerable talent. I doubt anyone would claim The Dilemma is likely to be remembered as a Ron Howard masterpiece.
The premise itself is rather thin: Man sees friend's wife being unfaithful, man debates what to do. This is, at best, an episode of a sub-par sitcom, and it does not merit the big-screen treatment. Somehow Ron Howard saw something here, and he decided to devote months of his valuable time to The Dilemma, instead of something like, say, Frost/Nixon 2: Nixon Strikes Back.
A wee bit of controversy has found its way into The Dilemma's promotional campaign. An earlier trailer included an overlong, not-very-funny clip of Vince Vaughn referring to electric cars as "gay". There was an uproar, and as such that trailer really can't be found anywhere anymore. Ron Howard and Vaughn have defended the joke, Howard going as far as saying that this controversy "endangers comedy".
Either way, give me a break. Should that joke be in the trailer? Probably not. So just suck it up, put out another trailer that gives away just about everything to the audience, and move on. I have a great number of complaints about this trailer in other ways, because as a whole it seems no one can make a decent comedy trailer anymore. They are supposed to TEASE the audience, not dump everything on them and beg for them to pay admission to see the same thing in extended form.
The jury is still out, and I have to keep myself from making grand judgments about the movie based on a few minutes of out-of-context jokes. What I attempt to critique with "Trailer Trash" is a film's advertising, which in this day in age is inescapable. Some say that people like me should avoid trailers, but I see them as an important facet of a movie's release. The audience will likely see these trailers, so I think I should watch movies from their perspective. Not to mention that I love a great trailer that leaves me begging to see the final product. In the case of The Dilemma, there is a real sense of "been there, done that", and it seems like a film that has no reason to exist.
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