We're reluctant to direct you to watch the newly birthed trailer for The Kite Runner, which is online here. Not because it's completely horrible – it's at worst just dull and a showcase for the worst excesses of Trailer Man – but because we firmly believe that it will not be reflective of Marc Forster's finished film. Forster is one the most under-rated directors currently at work and this, discordantly, is one of the least gripping trailers we've seen all year.
The man who will take the reins of Bond 22, makes films that don't really translate brilliantly into trailers. Finding Neverland looked like a really bog standard biopic, instead of the lyrical, visually imaginative ode to youth, with the power to make you weep like a girl even on the fourth watch (we've tested) that it turned out to be. Stranger Than Fiction looked like bad, confusing Will Ferrell comedy and was, in fact, elegantly complex, perfectly restrained and wonderful Will Ferrell comedy. So we'll hope that somebody just got over-excited with the very Oscar worthiness of the project when cutting this one together and took all the parts that might aim for your tear ducts, but hit your gag reflex, and hotch-potched them together out of context.
Based on Khaled Hosseini's best-selling novel, The Kite Runner is the story of a young boy who betrays his best friend, set against the backdrop of tumultuous events in Afghanistan. This trailer suggests that the movie is some kind of 'important' BIG POLITICAL FILM with a sappy story of redemption grafted on just to have something to put on the poster. Forster may like sentimentality – which should not be considered a dirty word – but he's not crass. He's all about character, not tubthumping. So we're just going to pretend this trailer never happened and continue looking forward to the film. OK? Let's not mention again.
So, how about those Bears?