Film Preview: Grudge Match (2013)

Poster

Additional posters can be found below.

Trailer Link

Release Date:

December 25, 2013

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “A pair of aging boxing rivals are coaxed out of retirement to fight one final bout — 30 years after their last match.”

Poster: C / C+ / B- (6) / C / B

Review: (poster #1) At first the design resembles many fancy placeholder posters and it may well be, but on further inspection it heavily resembles traditional boxing match posters from thirty or forty years ago, which adds to the flavor of the film.

(poster #2) A natural evolution from the teaser poster I previously reviewed. It more clearly evokes the boxing theme while putting our protagonists in clear view of curious onlookers. It’s also a lazy design that lacks inventiveness.

(posters #3-#8) Are the rare character posters, which seldom accompany non-genre films. Sure, comedy is a genre, but it seldom deserves separate accommodations. That doesn’t mean that the designs don’t work when they can and in this case, they do. There are two individual body designs and three of each accompany various actors, though it might have been more clever to take those two styles and use each for one team versus the other.

(poster #9) This is very similar to #2 but highlights the age of the actors at work, but might end up turning off interested parties as a result.

(poster #10 This is the design that needs to be best supported. It more closely aligns with the character posters, better developing the second poster design. It also looks more like a modern boxing advertisement.

Trailer: C-

Review: The trailer isn’t exceptionally funny and mostly just amounts to a realization that this film is a battle between Rocky‘s Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and Raging Bull Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro). That dynamic carries you through the first few frames of the trailer, but is instantly lost as the film tries to make itself a seriocomic spoof of boxing dramas, which doesn’t fly very well. The bits with Kevin Hart are far funnier than those with Alan Arkin, but overall the punchlines are a little flat here.