Copping an attitude.

You know, the more I hear about Cop Out, the more it seems like Warner Bros. is subconsciously telling me not to see the film. I mean, Kevin Smith is a sure thing in terms of a good time at the movies, but...just look at the evidence:

- the nearly laugh-free previews (The lines don't have the 'I wish I were deaf' unbearability of Knocked Up's "Look out. He wants to rear your child." or anything from the trailers of American Wedding and I Love You, Beth Cooper, but bits like "I'm not going to shoot you, Frank...Scarface." don't exactly inspire confidence.)
- James Venable isn't doing the music (It's petty, I know, but this is more Smith's fault than the studio's; it was his decision to hire Harold Faltermeyer to get the '80s cop movie feeling'. Venable couldn't have provided that himself? His Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back score showed him to be a wizard at pastiche.)
- it, in now way, feels like a Kevin Smith film (I'll get to this later, but, so far, this looks like it could've been written and directed by anyone.)
- the motherfucking title change (What would you rather say to a ticket taker? "One for A Couple of Dicks."? or "One for Cop Out, please."? Be honest.)

Still, Smith's films are built on the bedrock of profanity-filled conversations and, while I'm well-aware that you can't include them in green-band trailers, I was hoping that there would be something - anything - that would appeal to me beside this. For all I know, the trailers could be selling the film short and that it's actually uproarious. Kind of like how the Year One trailer was hilarious and how the film ended up being one of the cruelest jokes that God ever played on humanity. It's a vicious circle.