Gotta love movie advertising

Even when I was a kid, I would notice that there was a class of movie advertisements that breathlessly plugged the positive reviews the movie received from various critics, usually quoting about one phrase from the review. I always got the impression that the people making the ads would be dishonest enough to put up a review saying "This film is ... good", when the actual review said "This film is no good" with the ellipsis completely changing the meaning of the critic's review. Or, at least, changing the viewer's perception of what the critic wrote.

Fast forward a couple of decades. There's a British film called Legend coming to US theaters in October but which has already been released in the UK. So the various UK media outlets have been able to review it. According to the always interesting blogger David Thompson, the Guardian movie critic didn't care much for the movie, giving it only two stars as opposed to other reviewers who gave it more stars.

The people who make the movie advertising, however, figured out a way to use that to their advantage. Wow. The Guardian at least had some admiration for this, writing, "I might still dislike Legend but I like its marketing team. If only they could have written the script."