Time to play catch-up!
If you had seen the film after having seen the trailer, would you have been more receptive to it? I think a lot of us lowered expectations after seeing that trailer. Having now seen and having coming to terms that this will have a lot of comedy, would you be pleasantly surprised by the final product or still as disappointed?
First of all, I had no interest in seeing the movie even before any of the photos or trailers appeared. If I had seen the trailer as a naive viewer, I probably would have been so horrified by the campy, spoofy tone that I would have wanted to go into seclusion until after the movie's theater run had ended to avoid being exposed to the publicity and the fan furor surrounding it. I certainly would not have been interested in seeing a DS comedy. Granted that what I saw was not a final cut of the film, and that there certainly were things that I liked about the movie, I still didn't care for the product as a whole either as a representation of DS or as a movie on its own merits. I'm not sure how the final version might be an improvement.
Based on the AintitCool review, it does sound like there may have been significant changes to the film. For example, [spoiler]this review and the movie plot descriptions posted elsewhere (e.g., imdb) describe Barnabas as a stuck-up womanizer. However, none of that was apparent to me from the all-too-brief prologue and without the studio-issued plot summary, I would not have guessed that was the person the character was supposed to be. Perhaps the final cut has added some scenes to flesh out the prologue?
I agree with the reviewer's assessments of the characters. Haley's Willie Loomis is very different from Karlen's portrayal, but he was still one of my favorite characters in the movie, after Elizabeth and Vicki. Chloe Grace Moretz plays moody, hostile teenage Carolyn (think of how the character acted in the pre-Barnabas storyline) very believably; I simply don't care for moody teenagers, so her character, though well-played, didn't do anything for me. I didn't feel any special bond between her and Barnabas either (unlike the interactions between Barnabas and David), so either Derek has a different perception than I do, or more scenes were added to the film.[/spoiler]
Mysterious Benefactor, I enjoyed reading the blurb you posted about
Sleepy Hollow. While I agree that it has some funny scenes (moments of humor primarily derived from tension over the situations the characters are in), I have never thought of this movie as a "funny comedy" so Depp's description of it as such was surprising.
I did attend Seth Grahame-Smith's panel at the Festival of Books this morning and hope to have a summary ready to post tomorrow.
ProfStokes