First Trailer


We have a trailer:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3tRUskMLAdo

Thoughts?

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Doesn't look good.

I've never been a fan of these Clue/Hercule Poirot movies with their stunt casting. Too often the scripts are lame -- probably because all the high-priced help each demand their share of screen time at the expense of a good script.

The result is that they are all forced to revert to bad mugging for the camera to sell the (un)funny...

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How many of "these Clue/Hercule Poirot movies" can you name, beyond Clue and the actual Hercule Poirot movies?

The only one I can think of is Gosford Park, and it is decidedly not a comedy in any way.

As a fan of Agatha Christie, I tend to enjoy a good mystery of that sort and have been waiting for this trailer for a long time. Now that I've seen it though, I do admit I'm a little iffy on it. I will definitely see it, no doubt about that. But it's not quite living up to my high hopes.

I think I may have preferred a film with a little less of a comedic tone and I also tend to think that these kinds of stories work best as period pieces, not something set in the modern day.

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Murder by Death, Radioland Murders (cast was well-known comedic/character actors)...

Going way back there was Ten Little Indians which -- refreshingly -- did not have a total cast of A-listers, although it was only moderately entertaining.

Probably others I'm too lazy to look up...

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Well Rian Johnson fancies himself a comedic genius, so unfortunately for you this script was written and directed by the wrong guy.

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Usual RJ. He needs desperately to be clever, and smart, and irreverent, and subversive.

So he portrays some upper pseudo-Aristocratic class and make them look like a parody. And, well... that was irreverent and subversive... 150 years ago. Oscar Wilde ended in jail because of it... in the XIXth century. Nowadays, he's beating a dead horse. A dead horse that was already dead decades ago.

Besides that, he includes the usual trope 'professional, intelligent and serious black detective investigating white dudes that look down at him'. This character is the only one that doesn't look like a parody. If Rian Johnson wanted to subvert expectations, I mean, for real, he could have made this character part of the parody. He didn't. Making a black character look ridiculous, or parodic, or stupid... nowadays that would require a real irreverent director.

The problem with subverting expectations, when you subvert them for real, it's that it's a risky move for your career.

RJ is being irreverent and subversive with elements that stopped being irreverent and subversive a century ago. He plays safe. He's the guy that follows the herd and doesn't take any risk while he fantasizes about himself being some kind of subversive rebel. A friend of mine had an expression for that: armchair revolutionaries.

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I had to throw up a little when the 'CSI: KFC' line came up. Rian Johnson has to be the worst comedic writer of all time.

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I actually didn't even understand that line.

I agree that the comedy largely doesn't seem to to be working. I sent the trailer to a couple of friends of mine and they both said the trailer didn't do much for them.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been excited for this film for a while so I hope it ends up being better than the trailer makes it out to be. Maybe a second trailer will go over better.

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There's so much negativity in this thread that I feel compelled to post something positive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XOqW8dqq3I

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I'll likely catch this on Netflix when it gets there. Sooner than later I'm guessing.

However, I was glad to see Don Johnson in the cast.

After Miami Vice and Nash Bridges I fully expected him to disappear. I've been surprised at the places he keeps popping up. He had one of the funniest bits in Django Unchained. And there was a bit of fun at his expense in Machete where the credits listed him as "... and introducing Don Johnson" as if he was an unknown up-and-comer.

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