While every artist dreams of going to Hollywood to create their passion project, culminating in critical acclaim and broken box office records, their reality is probably far more mundane. The simple fact of the matter is the higher ups in the movie industry want to make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time, while spending as little as possible, and could give a damn about your “creative vision.”
As a result the industry is dominated by uninspired sequels and action movies that don’t require the audience to think, and honestly prompt viewers to turn their brain off all together. Though not a problem for some – let’s face it bad action movies can be fun at times – it’s always irked me to see such potential in franchises be wasted because they simply go down the cliche checklist in order to make the movie more marketable, thus likely more profitable.
Though The Mummy reboot certainly isn’t one of those movies I saw potential in (No Fraser, No Go), the unique take on it was at least interesting. That was until I saw the trailer that was accidentally released by IMAX originally uploaded -then quickly taken down – last week.
The Mummy trailer encompassed everything that is wrong with not only with modern day trailers, but with most blockbuster movies. Simply put, the first half of the trailer does not have the sound effect that the original trailer does, and boy does it sound terrible as a result.
Sound effects and music are great features to tell and enhance a story, so don’t take this as a way of saying that they aren’t important, but the modern movie industry uses them as a crutch. Without the cliche sound tactic of going from silence to a crescendo of loud explosions, culminating in a big reveal- which has seemed to replace the inception bwup sound – the trailer seems like an episode of the Big Bang Theory without its laugh track.
Couple awkward silences with enough terrible grunts and grown sound effects to make me miss the Wilhelm scream and that’s what you get from first half of The Mummy Trailer without sound. This accidentally released trailer has done a great job of emphasizing just how formulaic most movies – especially action – have become, and made it visible to even the most casual movie goer.
Trailers are suppose disclose the best of what a film is going to be without spoiling it, but this trailer certainly spoiled that this movie will be cliche and forgettable. It’s movies like this that make way for other cash grabs like the upcoming Emojis movie, quite possibly the worst movie idea this century (even beating Angry birds and Minions).
If you would like to see the video for yourself their is a vid.me trailer linked here, so be sure to check it out. If it gets taken down, it is available in droves of different places on the internet (An act I like to title the Beyonce effect) thanks to a user from 4chan.
