[imdb Funny people]Yikes! There are three movie plots crammed into this dinky little trailer! How much information do they expect us to process in just three and a half minutes? Adam Sandler’s funny, Seth Rogen’s funny, Adam Sandler’s dying, now he’s not dying, now he’s a home wrecker. Yeesh. It should have ended with a simple Adam Sandler may not be dying, that gives the essential conflict without having the whole film laid out.

This trailer feels cramped, like the editor had some important points to get across to the filmgoers, and a) didn’t trust us to pick up on small hints, and 2) did not have an outline. It’s like one of my high school essays about why I like summertime; the type of essays I would leave off till the very last second. It has no order to it. This does not feel like a cohesive montage with a single point (the plot) clearly focused upon. It’s much more a hack job of the two-hour film. I feel exhausted just watching the preview, and I don’t think I need to bother seeing the film; I know everything that’s going to happen.

Most trailers, not teasers, I’ve seen recently are usually 2.5 minutes long. It seems as though the extra minute the Funny People trailer had could have given us even more insight as to why we should see the film. Instead, that extra minute hurt the trailer, dragging it along like so much dead horse.

Beautifully crafted trailers need to have some sort of harmonic flow to them. They need to leave the audience asking questions that can only be answered by seeing the film. The trailer also needs to whet the viewer’s appetite. While the trailers of films I’m chomping at the bit to see usually end up making me even more hungry for the actual film, the trailer itself is usually so fun to watch by itself, it can usually allay my painful need to see it.

Funny People’s trailer leaves nothing to the viewer’s imagination. Omg, is Adam Sandler going to die? No. Oh. Well, is this woman going to stay “the one that got away?” Probably not. Oh. Is Seth Rogen going to develop and uber man-crush on Adam Sandler? Well, don’t we all? Oh yeah. Pshaw. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already seen the film. There is going to have to be some major twist in the film to make me shell out $15 to see it.

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