Huh huh, they don't know geek stuff and they're trying to work at Google! That's so, so deeply unfunny. Seriously, what's become of you guys? You really went from Wedding Crashers to this?
The point I want to bring up though is that final gag in the trailer, the "Professor Xavier" thing. That joke didn't do it for me at all the first time I sat through this trailer, and subsequent viewings have shown why; the joke is severely structurally flawed! Think about it; how many references to movies do these two make over the course of the trailer? All four Terminators, The Hunger Games and Flashdance, these guys know their movies. So as such, HOW DO THEY NOT KNOW X-MEN? It's not exactly a small, arthouse franchise, so with Wilson and Vaughan's other pop-culture reference points, it seems a very odd omission. The joke only really works if a) they don't go to movies any more or know modern pop-culture at all, which they obviously do if they're making Hunger Games analogies or b) if the joke involved a far more obscure comic character, which the casual audience won't get either.
I know I'm putting way more thought into this than the writers and director did, but there's the thing; even someone who's only got the barest scrape of experience with comedy is can point out how these jokes don't work or aren't funny. Think how much these movies cost to get made, and it's based around gags that just plain aren't thought through and wouldn't raise a titter from someone on nitrous oxide! From some of what I read, a lot of American comedy, especially some sitcoms, essentially is based around coming up with one liners and rough gags and trying to fit them together. Actually, in telling a good comedy story, the jokes should be one of the last things to be done, and should fit the characters and story being told. This joke might have worked with this set up, but the presence of the other pop-culture references just added into there, and the fact that personality wise Wilson and Vaughan don't seem to be the sort to get this far behind the times spoils it (I don't think this script was written with them envisaged, they were probably thinking of someone a bit older and a bit more convincingly out of touch in the roles). Needless to say I'm not going to see this movie, but unless the movie jumps through some ridiculous hoops to make the gag work (like having them specify they never ever watch superhero movies, despite having time for fare like Terminator and the Hunger Games, which they are pretty outside the target demographic for), I think my comment will probably stand for the film as the whole too.
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