How to Critique a Trailer
I don't typically dunk on trailers which I think are poorly edited, but every now and then I see something which throws me for a loop so much that I want to turn it into a lesson. My latest "inspiration" is this trailer for the new Jackie Chan movie Vanguard directed by Stanley Tong (Police Story 3: Supercop)
I think this a truly terrible trailer which I find baffling in so many ways, so I thought this would be a good way to discuss how I critique trailers (which I do on Twitch every Friday I can at 10am Pacific)
The first thing I try to consider when critiquing a trailer are its goals. By defining these goals, I can look at the trailer, and determine whether or not it successfully fulfills them. Since this is a movie trailer, I assume a high level goal is to give a sense of the movie's story.
A trailer typically sums up a movie's story through a combination of dialogue, visuals, and sometimes title cards. This trailer includes all three.
Therefore, the first questions I want to ask when critiquing this trailer are:
Does the dialogue tell a cohesive story?
Do the title cards help supplement the story?
Do the visuals tell their own story and/or complement the dialogue?
We don't know who this is, so I think we're meant to be impressed without context.
Here's a transcript of the dialogue and title cards:
Protecting innocent lives is our duty
"Vanguard" again
What's "Vanguard?"
"Vanguard is a Chinese British international private security company.
Most of them are retired military or security experts.
Their services include security for shipping, and VIP protection.
(TO BRING SECURITY)
I would say my goodbyes quickly.
(TO A DANGEROUS NEW WORLD)
We must do this!
Our friends, our team, need us!
We will not let them down!
(THE WORLD NEEDS)
Hold on!
Wait! The stairs are there!
Ok, go go go!
(JACKIE CHAN IN)
Hold on tight!
(A STANLEY TONG FILM)
When I count to three, we'll jump.
Three...
Two...
Jump!
How many people have you trained?
Many many.
It doesn't help the trailer when the spoken dialogue is different from the subtitles.
How good a job did this trailer do with its dialogue? I think a good trailer gives some sense of the story if you simply read through the dialogue, even without the character names. This trailer awkwardly provides some exposition of what "Vanguard" is, but all the subsequent dialogue are action scenes with no context whatsoever.
I barely know who are the heroes and villains or what any of the stakes are. For example, counting down from three is a classic action movie scene, but without knowing what the stakes are, the scene falls flat; I don't even know if the explosion which occurs in the trailer after the "Jump!" is related to the countdown.
The title cards aren't doing much for the trailer either, because they form an incomplete thought: "To bring security to a dangerous new world, the world needs... Jackie chan?"
Do the visuals tell a story?
Jackie Chan talking to trainees.
Vanguard team walking in slow motion.
Establishing shots of several international locations.
Vanguard members suiting up with guns.
Vanguard members performing a mission.
A car chase.
A boat chase scene with people jumping from one boat to another.
Jackie Chan looks at a photo of someone on his cell phone who is blind folded.
The wide shot of where that person is being held.
A caucasian man talking telling Jackie Chan to say his goodbyes quickly.
Jackie Chan and some people driving through a desert town.
A car chase in the desert town.
Some people fighting in interior locations.
A woman throwing her coat and shooting people.
A woman in a jeep being attacked by hyenas.
Jackie Chan and a man being chased by a lion.
A man jumping down from a second story railing onto a car and to the ground. Jackie prepares to chase, but takes the stairs instead.
A jet ski on the edge of a waterfall.
A man standing on landmines intercut with the river scene and some gun battles.
Jackie Chan being driven by a military looking person
A man in a suit winks.
Two men in a pool wink.
A woman in a bikini winks.
Pretty sure this woman is a Vanguard member, but with so little context, she could just as easily be a villain.
Obviously, visuals are generally meant to work in conjunction with the dialogue, but in this trailer's case they feel so disconnected I'm not sure if it's better or worse to think about them separately or together. This feels like a huge mish mash of action scenes where nothing has any sort of context whatsoever. Therefore it's difficult to care about any of it.
This is especially ironic because Jackie Chan is one of the most outspoken filmmakers about how story context is what makes action exciting. Because why would you care to watch two people fighting unless you knew what was at stake?
Based on the dialogue, title cards and visuals, this trailer is failing to tell much of a story on almost every level. I think this is the main failing of the trailer, but there's still so much more to critique!
This shot is so random, and without any sense of danger I just laughed.
Some trailers can still be interesting without much story, as long as they have a good sense of mood and tone. The next questions I'd ask would be whether or not the trailer does a good job of establishing mood and/or tone through use of:
Music
Shot selection
Editing/timing
The primary vibe this trailer gives off is a typical serious action movie. The music, despite sounding like low budget production music seems to work in concert with this goal. It sounds like a mix of electric guitars and then a dramatic orchestral epic score.
The problem it runs into is when there are a number of scenes which look like much more typical comedic Jackie Chan scenarios like his exaggerated look as he runs from the lion, the gag about taking the stairs instead of jumping down, the unintentionally funny hyena attack, and then the absolutely bewildering series of winks at the end. The action music doing its best to be as action as possible does not work at all with the comedic beats, and creates dissonance.
The montage editing seems to work okay with the goal of an action movie epic, but again it doesn't work when it comes to the comedic beats. Jackie deciding to take the stairs feels like a moment where the music would stop down for the joke, then resume afterwards, but the music instead plays straight through.
I think this trailer loses further points for not sticking to a particular tone, and/or not finding a way to integrate the comedy (or ignore it entirely if necessary). This mix of tones creates confusion, and makes the trailer far less successful.
Another shot which looks right at home in a typical Jackie Chan movie, just not the serious action movie which was sold to us up to this point.
The last thing I'd critique is the sound mix which is also pretty terrible because dialogue is frequently drowned out by the music, and yet there are times the music is drowned out by everything else. I'm not a professional sound mixer, but if I cannot hear what I think I should be hearing during each specific shot, I can't see it as anything else but a technical failure.
Another thing is I have little to no idea how big Jackie Chan's role is in this film. There are a lot of characters who aren't him, and the trailer doesn't focus on him too much. How heavily Jackie Chan factors into the story is an important question to address, because people might be disappointed if it amounted strictly to a cameo.
To say this montage was an odd way to end the trailer is a gross understatement.
So there you have it, my rough breakdown for what makes this trailer pretty awful all around. These are not the only criteria by which you can critique a trailer but to review, consider how successfully a trailer:
Tells a story
Creates mood and tone
Technically executes sound and picture
You might have your own ways of determining how successfully a trailer achieves any of these criteria, or even different criteria by which to judge a trailer, but these are generally what I'm thinking about.
If there's anything you think I missed, or if this helped equip you to critique trailers please feel free to reply to this email or tweet me @Derek_Lieu!
