Why see a movie when you can watch the TRAILER?

Friends, colleagues, movie enthusiasts together. Who else is sick of watching movie trailers that give away ALL of the plot, the twists and most of the best shots?? 

So often I hear about a movie that sounds pretty good, or see a teaser campaign's series of posters and I get really excited about it... I then watch the trailer and it's RUINED.

This afternoon I went to see The Tourist with Johnny Depp and Ang-g-g-g-elina Jolie (who still has it - HAS. IT.).

I won't discuss my thoughts of the plot itself too much, nor will I tell you to see it nor skip it, but I will tell you this - besides the last 5 mins of the movie, I felt like I had already seen the first 98.

Honestly, no joke. There were no surprises, no 'wow' moments that I didn't already know were coming, no one-liners I didn't see coming, no matter how pithy or well delivered they were. I basically could have fast-forward to the last 5 mins to see what I already thought was probably going to happen. ROBBED!

Angelina my dear, you're smoking (and your English accent is pretty good). Mr Depp, you were pretty cool and charming but guys, I want my $12 back AND the $12 I spent on a bottle of water and popcorn. ROBBED I tell you! ROBBED!

Leading up to the movie though let's talk about the trailers themselves...

• First up, The Eagle - looked pretty good but it was spoiled. ROBBED

• Guy goes out into the wilderness to find his Dad's missing golden eagle thing from the top of his Dad's legion's standard bearer that was lost 20 years ago.
• Guy takes slave with him.
• Slave turns out to already know where the Eagle is.
• Guy and Slave get captured by the people who have the Eagle and defeated his Dad's legion.
• Guy becomes the Slave's slave in a not so curious turn of events (that you see in the trailer)
• Some kind of brotherly, respect based relationship develops between Guy and Slave, who's now the Slave's slave.
• Some kind of grand, Ridley Scott / Gladiator-esque battle sees Guy get his Eagle back, sees Guy resolve his Slave-like issues, blood, guts, glory... blah
• THE END. 
• I'll skip it thanks and wait for DVD. Even then I might not even bother because I'll see the DVD cover and remember what happens because the trailer spelled it out for me in crayon like I'm 5.

• Next up, Battle: Los Angeles
• Actually looks pretty good and although is basically looks like a smash between Independence Day and Skyline (barf) with the look and feel of District 9 (AMAZING). And while they didn't give too much of the plot away this probably doesn't have much of a plot to begin with, which is a bit of cheat in this context so I can't count this one for or against my argument. Bugger.
• And the rest... they don't deserve having their posters put up on display...
• The Dilemma. Do we really care if he tells fat-boy Kings of Queens dude about his girlfriend cheating or not? Let's face it, the movie is the trailer and you don't need to pay your $$ to find out what happens at the end. Who's cares. Besides a few quality Vince Vaughan rants it will be utter bollocks. DVD, maybe. Next.
• Morning Glory. Fun, struggle, stress, going out on a limb, laughs, old guy's redemption, young girl's salvation, everyone feels a little inspired but not sure about precisely what. The end. DVD, maybe. Probably not actually, and Rachael McAdams isn't particularly engaging, interesting or hot. NEXT!
• Green Hornet. Looked brilliant, looked funny, we were shown all of the good parts and it ended up being such a long trailer that I didn't want to find out when it starts to show and what happens at the end. DVD, maybe... urrghh. But it did make me think of the Green Lantern... 

I'm crossing my fingers for you Mr Green Lantern, even though you're being played by Ryan Reynolds which will therefore probably mean the style of the movie will be mildly sarcastic (trying to be extremely sarcastic) and almost so tongue-in-cheek it will make me cringe. BUT you're married to Scar-Jo and I quite like how you remind of Ben Affleck, but you're NOT Ben Affleck, so I'll probably go see your movie.

Did you people not SEE Batman Begins though?! Sit down, kick back, take note. Chris Nolan and David S Goyer rock rebooting a genre that Tim "I'm an artist, I'm an artist" Burton and Joel Schumacher nearly f*cked up forever. 

Anyway, I suppose I can look on the bright side and thank you movie studios for saving me an average  2 hours of my life and $12 per movie every time you release another pile of donkey crap on film (Hollywood has a 1 in 10 average for producing watchable, quality movies I feel). Your trailers tell me I all I need to know about what happens and I see all the cool bits for FREE and can then do something else for the next 2 hours. Score! (?) Hmm. I feel like I'm happy about being robbed. It's just wrong.

It's time for us all to skip watching trailers for good or give up on going to the movies.

Movie industry - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!