Best and Worst Trailers of 2005

KW's post on trailers and my subsequent copycat post was a great deal of fun. Now I'll review the best and worst of this past year.

Although some of these trailers were present in 2004 (for 2005 releases), I will make mention of them for this year, just as I will mention some trailers for movies this year that I saw just last year. Got that? Good.

Thanks to Movie-List.com many of these trailers are available online. The effectiveness of this post I think almost entirely hinges on you clicking on these links and taking a look at these trailers. In the words of Matthew Lesko, "I've done the work, now you make the call!" A couple of these may give you a slight wait, but they'll be worth it if you like trailers.

Here are the memorable trailers of the year in no particular order, followed by the top 10.

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, SIN CITY, UNLEASHED, STAR WARS: EPISODE III, HIGH TENSION, WAR OF THE WORLDS, WEDDING CRASHERS, RED EYE, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, THE WEATHER MAN, SERENITY, WALK THE LINE, MUNICH, JARHEAD, MILLIONS, CRASH, MARIE ANTOINETTE, NIGHT WATCH, KING KONG, HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, SYRIANA


10. Munich

It should be no surprise that both of Spielberg's films had great trailers. The marketing for this movie, I feel, was not as good as it could have been to put it in a place to succeed in a greater capacity, but it certainly isn't this trailer's fault.

9. Red Eye

The award for best snookering of the year comes from the teaser of this Wes Craven thriller. Beginning like every romantic comedy trailer you have ever seen, it punches you in the face.

8. Crash

One of the best films of the year, courtesy of Paul Haggis and Lion's Gate, also had a great trailer, not to mention genius marketing campaign, to become a huge success story. This is one of the few trailers that don't move super-fast and have flashy editing to be a memorable piece of advertising.

7. Night Watch

The "Where is it?" movie of 2005, and now 2006, had this incredible knockout trailer. It's the beginning of a trilogy and I can't tell you if the movie is any good, but the trailer was one of the most memorable of the year.

6. Marie Antoinette

Sofia Coppola's Fall 2006 picture has a trailer that just kicks thanks to New Order's "Age of Consent." The approach to this preview is completely different from any period piece you've ever seen.

5. High Tension

Bar none, one of the most disappointing movies of the year had one of the greatest ratios of trailer-to-movie quality differentials in quite some time. All the carnage and beautiful editing is accompanied by Sonic Youth's great cover of the Carpenters' "Superstar." This teaser comes courtesy of justmovietrailers.com.

4. Unleashed

This Jet Li beat-em-up has one of the coolest trailers you'll ever see. This one, in its final third, rocks to the tune of Muse's "Apocalypse Please."

3. Sin City

Click on the teaser for this year's most glaring trailer-to-movie quality differential. A lot of people loved this Robert Rodriguez movie, and I'm not knocking them. But what a bunch of promise this movie had. I should have known when the second trailer came out, it wasn't going to be nearly as good as I hoped. Anyway, this incredible teaser, when first shown in 2004, got me revved.

2. Kingdom of Heaven

Halfway into the teaser for this Ridley Scott film, it turns into a clinic of editing and sound. And really, despite it's ranking at #2, nothing matched the brilliance of it. They inexplicably went to a new trailer after this one. Once again, we should have known. But the movie wasn't all bad, really. The trailer, though, rocked.

1. Jarhead

Once again, it's a teaser. Even if you didn't like this movie, once you watch this teaser, you'll actually want to see it again. The beautiful images of Sam Mendes' Gulf War film snug up cozily to Kanye West's "Jesus Walks." It was my personal most-watched trailer of the year.

THE WORST TRAILERS OF THE YEAR

Almost every obnoxious kids movie had a crappy trailer, so take your pick which was worse: CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2, YOURS, MINE, AND OURS, THE PACIFIER, RACING STRIPES, ARE WE THERE YET?, SON OF THE MASK, or REBOUND. There were many other bad kid movies, but these had the most obnoxious trailers. Then you have the horrible horror trailer and film BOOGEYMAN. But trailers, as much as we are fooled by the good ones, are often the function of the movies they advertise, so it's no surprise that those trailers are bad. I'm going a slightly different direction on the worst list.

Oddest Teaser-to-Trailer Jump of the Year

A toss-up between Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Kicking and Screaming.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman had a teaser where creator Tyler Perry was in his full Madea drag, informing everyone he was on the set of his new movie. It certainly seemed like a comedy in the making. Then, the trailer came out and we find that it's a drama, and Madea hardly shows up in the entire new version. I have no idea what the plan was for the marketing, and it turned out to be a surprise hit, but what a confusing pair of trailers. I couldn't even find the original teaser, so this will remain unlinked.

Kicking and Screaming looked like a fairly dark Will Ferrell soccer comedy when the teaser hit, and it got me excited to watch, especially when he's telling a little kid he's been "served a big plate of humiliation." Then the regular trailer came out, and we find it's your usual soccer comedy, just with Will Ferrell. The movie itself was highly schizophrenic, so it was no surprise that the marketing team had difficulty.

The Worst Trailer to Best Movie Overall Ratio

Cinderella Man, no doubt. If you want to know why people typically stayed away from one of the best movies of the year, then look no further than the trailers put out for this.

The Most Likely Trailer to Make Your Hair Fall Out

Yours, Mine, and Ours. Not only were the madcap hijinks so cliche that the ASPCA should arrest these people for beating a dead horse, the last two seconds feature a pig belching, as if the whole other 2 1/2 minutes weren't uncomfortable.

Most Idiotic Thing Said in a Trailer (and probably in film) This Year

In Boogeyman, protagonist Barry Watson tells a little girl he used to count to five when he got scared. And so, the little girl asks, "What happens when you get to 6?" Well, little girl, he doesn't count to 6. I know that the idea is, "What happens after 5?" but that's what the line should have been in the first place.

OK, I'll Take A Stab At the Worst Trailer of the Year.

Son of the Mask. The movie is so bad, they couldn't have possibly made a good trailer. But it's almost like every terrible thing from the movie goes into the preview. The interaction between father Jamie Kennedy and his baby son has almost every annoying facial gesture condensed into mere seconds. It will frighten you the capability of man to watch this.

There's the trailer list. Hope you have fun watching.