This week's most ridiculous trailer: Alpha and Omega

Lord love them, but little kids don't have the most refined senses of humor -- it's a fact that they will watch anything as long as it's animated and someone takes a projectile to the balls every once in a while. Which is all fine and good, but kids don't...

By Jef Otte

September 17, 2010

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Lord love them, but little kids don't have the most refined senses of humor -- it's a fact that they will watch anything as long as it's animated and someone takes a projectile to the balls every once in a while. Which is all fine and good, but kids don't have any money. To get them into the theater, you've got to get parents into the theater, and parents require a somewhat more sophisticated approach to writing. This is the genius of at least the first two Shrek movies and everything Pixar has ever done, and it's exactly where this trailer for Alpha and Omega goes terribly wrong. Let's take a look.

We all know that hoary old trailer trick where the music stops and then somebody says a one-liner, which makes it all the more baffling at second 14 when the music stops here for the classic "In A World" (and this trailer comes precariously close to opening with exactly that phrase) voice to say a one-liner that, combining the announcers gravelly tone with his forced, awkwardly sunny intonation, is less funny than just confusing.

Immediately, the trailer goes from there to the world's most uncomfortable double entendre, which basically sums up this trailer's mistake -- which is to say it doesn't appeal to anyone. For adults, it's a crappy, perfunctory children's movie they will not be inclined to see. For kids, it's about an outsider romance. And everyone knows that, when you're seven years old, romance is totally gross.

But hey, it comes out in 3D... next month... for some reason. Uh, anyone want to see this in 3D? Guys?

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