LOL: What If ‘Collateral Beauty’s Worst Reviews Were Quoted In Its Trailer?
Collateral Beautyis not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. Nor is it the kind of bad movie that’ssobonkers, it’s perversely enjoyable. Really, it’s just a dull, maudlin drama with nonsensical plot twists you can see coming from like eight miles away.
But there is one thing aboutCollateral Beautythat is extremely enjoyable, and that is the reviews it attracts. Some of the most entertaining pieces of film criticism I’ve read this year are takedowns of this terrible, terrible movie, and having seen it myself I can confirm it deserves all the scorn it gets. And apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so. An (obviously unofficial) new “trailer” rounds up some of the very meanest quotes about the film for your viewing pleasure.
ScreenCrushput together thisCollateral Beautyreviews trailer as part of their Critics Are Raving series.
Here’s a list of the featured reviews:Vince Mancini at Uproxx,Matt Prigge at Metro,Moira Macdonald at Seattle Times,Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian,Peter Canavese at Groucho Reviews. I’m linking them here because officially released trailers (for any movie, not justCollateral Beauty) can be notoriously shady when it comes to these gushing quotes. Every TV spot seems to have them, and most of them are exactly what you think they are — excerpts of positive reviews of the film in question. But when there aren’t a lot of good reviews to choose from, some teams will stoop to various tricks to make the film look better. They might pull a quote from certain outlets that are known to be less than trustworthy, or misrepresent lines from not-so-glowing reviews.
In the case ofCollateral Beauty, what looks like a rave review might turn out to be nothing more than a single word supposedly uttered by an anonymous audience member at a random screening. As pointed out by our own Ethan Anderton:
High praise from a trusted source:pic.twitter.com/HnJ7Hcz4tP
— Ethan Anderton (@Ethan_Anderton)June 22, 2025
When in fact, real reviews ofCollateral Beautyread a lot more likethis (extremely spoiler-y) onefrom the Village Voice’s Alan Scherstul.Or this one, from Vulture’s Emily Yoshida.Or this one, from Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff. Believe me when I say the movie isn’t worth watching, but the reviews are fun to read. All of them are way better crafted and more entertaining than the movie itself, which starts out misguided and only gets worse from there.
But I know there are a few of you for whom all these terrible reviews are just fueling your curiosity. If you’re one of those,Collateral Beautyis in theaters right now. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
