We have defended some great comedies lately, arguing that despite some bad trailers beforehand, the end products have turned out very, very good.
The likes of Game Night or Blockers immediately come to mind.
Also, we want to stay positive, and we love a lot of the folk who appear in this trailer, including Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), June Diane Raphael (Long Shot), David Cross (Arrested Development) and Steve Zahn (The White Lotus), and we also liked some of the other movies that this director has made, including What If, Stuber and Goon.
But the trailer for 8-Bit Christmas... oh boy... this is a bad trailer.
From the set-up of Harris telling his daughter about his past (which just smacks of... well... How I Met Your Mother), to the entire trailer feeling like an advertisement for Nintendo, to the plot basically being the same as Jingle All The Way (historically, one of the worst Christmas movies of all time), there is a lot here that feels wrong.
That is without mentioning the fact that the trailer, apparently for a comedy, has zero good jokes in it.
Instead of getting a gaming console, a little boy's parents get him... book ends? Is that a joke? Or just... a thing that happens in the movie? Nearly 10 seconds of the trailer is dedicated to the fact that Harris can't remember what year it was. Is that supposed to be a joke? Maybe. But it isn't funny, so...
There's a scene where young Neil Patrick Harris (played by Winslow Fegley) apparently breaks into someone's house to... steal a Nintendo? Play with one? The trailer isn't clear on that. But there's a small angry dog in there, and then... nothing. We're no longer in the house, he's suddenly in a shopping mall, talking about Vietnam. Are they jokes? Maybe? Maybe...
And then suddenly there is a wreath-selling contest (I had to rewind that bit a few times, because it was actually tough to follow), and the top prize is a Nintendo, so everyone is trying to sell wreaths. Is this still all before Christmas? When they'd all asked for a Nintendo from Santa?
From that point on, stuff is just happening. An old man takes his teeth out. A boy pushes another boy into some snow. A man shouts from the top of a hill. A kid kicks his TV and it lands on a dog. There is something about walkie-talkie nicknames.
And then it's over.
Again, we want to try to stay positive, and this could be the next Blockers or Game Night, and turn out to be secretly brilliant. It would certainly make for a pretty decent Christmas miracle...
8-Bit Christmas will be available to download at home on PVOD platforms from Friday, 26 November.
Clip via WB UK & Ireland
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