Let me be up front about something right off the bat: I proudly own some pretty horrible movies. "Boarding House"? Yep. "Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare?" Love it. Even Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" has a place on my shelf. My point is that I don't consider myself a film snob by any stretch, so please bear that in mind, because this is probably going to sound like something a film snob would totally say, but I have just finished watching the full trailer for the upcoming Easter Bunny CG/live action comedy "Hop", and quite frankly I am pissed. No, I wasn't expecting it to look like a great film, but I have to hand it to whoever cut this thing together: it's been quite a while since a film trailer actually made me angry. Not bored. Not disappointed. Angry.

To recap the highlights: the movie appears to follow the adventures of this generation's newest Easter Bunny, a fun-loving young rabbit who would rather follow his dreams of being a rock star than deliver candy. So far, so banal. We see him hop his way to Los Angeles, get run over by a car, meet up with a perplexed-looking human dude (James Marsden), make jokes about pooping on said dude's floor, play his music for an approving David Hasselhoff, poop candy all over Marsden's car hood, inappropriately fondle a hot blonde chick who thinks he's a stuffed animal, and twitch his nose cutely at the camera. Then, because we weren't done with the poop yet, the blonde chick eats some of his delicious candy waste while Marsden struggles not to vomit.

No, I'm not mad at this trailer because it's dishing out a whole lot of stupid-looking third grade jokes... that's par for the course these days, and I'm sure by this point nobody really expects anything better. It's not even the uncomfortably drawn-out moment where the bunny takes a dump on the hood of the guy's car - despite it being yet another step closer to making full-on scat footage available to the under-12 set - or the fact that the chick ends up eating some (it's funny because poo goes in mouth ha ha). I'm talking about the line that Marsden has to deliver in response to seeing the Easter Bunny crap a load of jelly beans onto his car: "You poop candy." That's right, the movie not only dishes out a gag wherein the hero takes a magical shit, but then it assumes that you, the audience, need to have that information repeated verbally... just in case, you know, you didn't get it.

I know it's hardly news to point out that most mainstream Hollywood movies treat their audience with quite a bit of intellgence-insulting contempt, but seriously. This movie thinks you need to be told that one of the characters has just taken a crap, because otherwise you might not get the joke. I thought that Michael Bay hated his fans, but in comparison this really takes it to a new level. Say what you will about "The Room", but as jaw-droppingly bad as that filmic abomination is, it at least feels like a sincere attempt. "Hop" and all the bajillions of other movies just like it don't even have the honest intention of telling you a simple story... they're just crass, shallow, cynical money grabs that work by appealing to the absolute lowest common denominator. They trade in kindergarden-level potty humor and instantly dated pop culture jokes not because anybody involved really thought they were being funny, but because it's cheap and it's easy. These movies aren't bad because somebody had a misguided vision. They're bad because the people making them honestly think we're all a bunch of idiots. Well, up yours too, Hollywood. Give me Tommy Wiseau any day.