The Worst Movie Posters of 2013
Hapless hijinks all around!
There are some great movie posters out there. Some really tell a story of their own just with how creative or even simplistic the image presented are. Everybody loves a good floating head collage while some just come up with a design that doesn’t tell you everything but draws you in with something cool enough to make you think the movie might have something to it.
Then there are the other ones. That’s what this is about because regardless of how good the movie may or may not have been, the poster that was meant to draw you in just didn’t do it’s friggin’ job.
Beautiful Creatures
Following in the tradition of simply plastering your beautiful cast across the poster to simply attract the fifteen year olds that are going to see it, Beautiful Creatures along with last year’s Twilight conclusion and this year’s The Host, it does absolutely nothing to tell us what it’s about.
With no offense to the cast, they’re not even particularly “beautiful.” They all kinda look like normal people just hanging out. Am I supposed to see beauty in a different way, as in the way these people live is in a mysterious an attractive way?
I’m already digging too deep, coming up with nothing and tossing the idea of watching this to the side. If you read the book(s) this is based on and you’re thinking that I don’t get it, because I have to read the book or blahblahblah…that’s the point of the poster, to attract you; not bore.
The distracting CG backdrop is also a bit ‘meh.’ Which brings me to my next point…
Jack the Giant Slayer
I’d hate to be accused of vomiting on whatever Bryan Singer chooses to do, but c’mon. Look at this thing. I looked as several versions and they all have this same design of “Make the poster and put it out. Doesn’t matter if it looks like the actors are actually with the giants.”
It looks like a direct-to-DVD rip-off of some movie that actually came out in theaters. The only way this could be worse is if one of those companies actually ripped it off with a “Jack and Giant Killer” or something.
Welp, upon a second glance, they’ve actually already done that and here it is. You tell me what’s actually worse.
Peeples
Craig Robinson seems like a cool guy, and who could have a problem with David Allen Grier. I never see that guy anymore. But no matter how defensive one might get over the black version of Meet the Parents, This poster is lame.
I just told you everything you need to know by describing this as the black Meet the Parents, something that says volumes more than a close up of a giant face. In all fairness, there’s another poster of Robinson crying in the exact type of close up that says “He’s not good Peeples.” I guess this would tell you that he wants to be good Peeples? Okay. Sure. So why did they make this poster look like it was advertising for a Drama?
After Earth
Father/son bonding time for most people might involve playing catch or going to watch a movie while father/son bonding time for Will Smith and son means making a crappy movie that wasn’t helped by a poster with nothing else but their faces. Sure, they look serious, but what are we learning here? Okay, the “fear is a choice” deal makes sense, but does anything get accomplished in this?
Yeah, I guess if you’re going to see a movie just because Will Smith and his son are in it, then this bland bit of artwork is all you need.
The Internship
So for the last bit of “In-Your-Face” posters I give you “The Internship,” a movie that was fine leaving you with the information that these big ol’ lovable buddios were going to be chumming it up together as…uh-oh…interns! Maybe a tagline would have helped? Or a title with the same colors as the Google logo?
All I really get is that Owen Wilson is vaguely interested in you while you slightly surprise Vince Vaughn.
Pacific Rim
As fun as Pacific Rim was, this poster, which doesn’t suffer from lack of story, suffers from something similar to what The Giant Slayer does in giving us an exact picture of what’s in the movie…with what looks like while running on empty with their budget. This looks like it was meant for whatever Transformers cartoon is on TV nowadays.
Still, this lets you know what’s going on. If only it didn’t look so dumb. If you look at the robot running toward us in the background makes me think of a really tired graphic artist ready to go home and not really caring anymore.
The Wolverine
This one is for all the comic book movies out there… While we’ve had a few this year, Wolverine shows us yet again that to be on a movie poster is to cross your arms with your claws out.
The X-Men movies are forever destined to have little more than a giant “X” on them while the makers of Wolverine are content with having him stand there and not much else. I give them points for at least doing this to bring to mind images of traditional Japan, as it’s where Wolverine goes in the movie, so that’s fine. But is there nothing else this guy can do?
I’m sure Ratner was just as excited as the studio back when they were able to use Wolverine’s baby fisted claws popping up to make the “III” back when The Last Stand came out but that was seven years ago. They’re still doing this?
Delivery Man
So Vince Vaughn is as hapless and casual as ever, and he’s also twelve feet tall. I don’t know what else to tell you about this poster. Just look at it. If all we’re relying on is Vaughn’s appearance as a man suffering from Gigantism, count me out.
And no, I don’t have anything against Vince Vaughn. I actually like him, but it’s the posters we’re focusing on. Not the first time I’ve gotten onto one of his movie’s cases for looking terrible I suppose.
Paranoia
As forgettable as it was if you’d ever even heard of this, the poster just sort of says “Look, don’t you think something interesting might happen? We’ve got Ford and Oldman. Look, that one guy is running.”
The tagline also seems to have nothing to do with the title of the movie. Why not go with a paranoid line of some sort? “When you’re always watching your back…you might be stabbed in the front.” I don’t know. Something that involves paranoia, for crying out loud.
Good, old actors, and beautiful nobodies. More or less. I don’t know anybody that would watch a movie just because these two are in it, good looking as they are. I mean, just look at ’em. Smoldering all over the place.
Frozen
Yeah the movie was good and all, but you’re telling me the people at Disney couldn’t come up with something better than a few heads poking out of the snow? This is something for the back of the DVD/Blu Ray case.
The colors are nice and all but it leaves us (once again) with nothing about what’s going on save for the fact snow will be in the movie and that snowman is alive. Do you get the point with this article? The poster is supposed to tell you something, intrigue you, have you guessing and wanting to know more- not just say “Huh. Okay.”
With a quick visit to Microsoft Paint, I’ve provided what I believe to be a more accurate depiction of the adventure, excitement, and like, cold weather that this movie provides.
You may be surprised to find out that by the time I was done with this, I was exhausted. I can’t imagine making these things for a living. Phew! I’m beat.
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