Sanitised Trailer Scrubs Humour From ‘Observe And Report’

We’re on the record anticipating Seth Rogen’s mall-cop comedy Observe and Report as the moody anti-Blart for thinking adults. But the new green-band trailer has us wondering if Warners has us all fooled.

Obvious as it is, there’s always room for amazement watching what a few creative edits, realignments and tweaks can do to a story. And the shorter the piece (a two-and-a-half-minute trailer, for example) the more jarring the impact: Slashing a few dirty jokes here and there has diminished first impressions of Observe from those of a ribald, radical dark comedy of insecurity to more of a mopey, emasculated Rogen dramedy. Sure, it withholds some gags you’d probably want saved for the theatre. The downside, naturally, is that who’s to say this would get you to the theatre if you didn’t know better?

Which of course gets us into the nature of what a trailer should or shouldn’t do, etc. etc. Debate that one among yourselves (the original, NSFW red-band trailer is below), but at least give Observe and Report some credit going forward: At least there’s no Segway.

• ‘Observe and Report’ [MySpace]