The Good, the Bad, and the Overused Cliche Title

Movie Poster Edition

Movie posters of late seem to follow a pretty predictable formula. There will either be a group shot of the main character(s), or whoever the producers would like us to think is the main cast, standing around and glaring at the camera. There's some variation to this, usually indicative of genre (grinning on a poster for a comedy flick, screaming terror for horror, etc) and some of the better-designed posters (ie, most by or imitating the style of Drew Struzan) get a more dynamic layout, usually managing to get across a good indication of the movie's tone even if they don't tell you too much about the plot or premise.
So, with absolutely no smooth segue at all, let's dive right in. If it really bugs you, just pretend it's some super-pretentious attempt at referencing film-technique and call it a jump-cut or something.

The Good: Daybreakers

This isn't the best poster I've ever seen, but it's certainly eye-catching, it gets the point across, and it's probably going to stand out when compared to the other, more photographic posters at the theater.
It keeps it simple and tells you what you need to know (vampires, presumably doing something that allows them to come out during the day) and gives a pretty good indication of what the tone's going to be like. This movie is going to be so violent and bloody, so terrifying, that very image on the promotional poster is going to leap off the paper and tear your throat out. It's not very pretty, but this is about bloodsucking monsters -- even if they're played by the most beautiful people Hollywood has to offer, they still eat people. Pretty probably isn't something that's going to be very indicative of the final movie in this case.

The Bad: Twilight

Okay, disclaimer time -- I have not seen this movie (or, in fact, any of the movies represented here), but I've done enough research to have a decent idea of the movie's premise and plot and so on. This movie HAS tried to take the more modern, prettified view of vampires, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not very well-executed here. I have it from some reliable sources that Robert Pattinson can be pretty attractive to people of the appropriate gender and/or orientation, but here he just looks like he's ready to kill someone, or maybe like he really needs some fiber.
What I get from this is mostly dark broodiness and teenaged goths, with a side of over-applied body-oil or something. I've read enough to know that the vampires are supposed to be all shiny and stuff, but the effect really doesn't work well. Again, the darkness does seem to carry over somewhat into the actual movie, but everything I've heard indicates that the main focus of the story is a romance. I'm not getting that here, except maybe in a really twisted sense of the word; Rob looks kind of like he's about to break Kristen Stewart's arms. And if the main focus of the story is supposed to be the couple, do we really need all the supporting cast shown like this?

The Ugly: Alice In Wonderland

I know, the Mad Hatter is a fairly well-known character from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and that Johnny Depp is a very popular actor. But this can be seen as a case study in too much of a good thing. Or rather, a good thing done badly. There's showing off a weird character in an attempt to draw interest in a movie, and then there is terrifying small children on their way through the theater. The new Tim Burton movie doesn't sound like it's going to have children as its target audience, so maybe this is the studio's subtle way of flashing a warning to parents -- bring your kids into this movie, and they will be traumatized for months. But honestly, I'm just sitting here looking at it on a computer screen, and I'm getting a little scared. And not in that usual horror movie, ooh-what's-gonna-happen-next kind of way, but scared in the HP Lovecraft mind-rape-of-Cthulu-meets-Pennywise-the-Clown kind of way.

And I just wanted to give a special mention to this poster. It's not particularly bad or good, but THAT positioning of THAT particular title on a photo of the lead actor? It's like they actually WANT people to make dick jokes.









Disclaimer 2.0: All images displayed are the properties of their respective owners, ie, people who are not me. They are displayed here without permission but not for profit.