Hats off to the marketing people behind Tom Hardy's latest movie, Legend.
A less than complimentary review from The Guardian - which gave the film only two stars - was neatly covered up on the poster to give the impression of a more stellar write up.
Hardly plays the role of both Kray twins in the gangster film which got a series of four and five-star reviews from the likes of Empire, Time Out, and Glamour.
However a two-star review from The Guardian left the marketing people stumped after reviewer Benjamin Lee branded the movie "disappointingly pedestrian".
What's the solution? Simply position the two star rating between the two Tom Hardy heads on the poster so it looks like they are covering up more stars and voila it looks like the paper has given Legend a four or five star thumbs up.
Needless to say the reviewer was less than impressed by this marketing trickery which he branded "incredible".
Incredible way of making my two star review seem like I didn't hate the film pic.twitter.com/zvOyIxHQ3h
— Benjamin Lee (@benfraserlee) September 8, 2015
In fairness the selective quoting of reviews by movie marketeers is nothing new though this one does win a prize for blatant cheekiness.
In his film blog today Lee said he admired the brazenness, but said audiences need to be wary of false advertising.
He said that "in a stroke of brazen genius, the marketing department tasked with selling the shoddy true crime tale decided to embrace the mediocrity of my review and found a devious solution", adding that "there’s something maddeningly brilliant about this promotional sleight of hand"
Sometimes it just takes two stars
