When it originally started, I loved Honest Trailers. The idea was extremely fresh in that what would happen if movie trailers were truthful about the film being advertised? Thankfully, the series in its early days served that premise well, making fun of the shortcomings in many films in a smart and analytical manner. All of this the while having a narrator whose exaggerated deep voice (meaning to spoof similar narrators in actual trailers) delivered the scripts with such an over the top nature that it becomes hard not to laugh at some points (their Twilight episodes are good examples of this - the inability to pour ketchup still cracks me up every time). Because of this, the show in its early days was fantastic and along with other great web shows that mocked films (like How It Should Have Ended & Cinema Sins) showed how movie spoof and satire is alive and well on the internet, especially when film & TV have come up short recently (Seltzerberg anyone?).
However, like many other comedy series, it's fair to say that Honest Trailers is starting to lose its mojo. My main problem with the show is that instead of being a well mixed combination of criticism and comedy like it previously was, one element now dominates. They feel more like straightforward critiques of the films instead of more tongue-in-cheek ones. While this fine if you want that sort of thing, if you were expecting laughs, they are sadly far more sporadic than before, despite some exceptions (like the Frozen or Inside Out HTs). Also, whenever politics gets involved, it's rather cringey rather than funny. When they whinge about how bad the attitudes of old Disney movies were for instance, they come across as nagging Anita Sarkessian SJW types rather than witty comedians. When they mock Donald Trump, not only do they feel like they're going for the low hanging fruit for humour, but also don't offer anything new in that field. Not to mention how they won't be balanced and mock other politicians like Hillary Clinton. That leads me to another point, in that they aren't as brutally honest as before, which not only makes it less funny, but also less different especially when they go for the obvious points about certain films, like their Spider-Man trilogy trailer.
Another issue for me is that the current narrator (John Bailey) isn't as exaggerated as the other ones. I understand that their narrator differed in sometimes in their earlier trailers, but they still kept the tone right, whether they be similarly over the top (like in their original Phantom Menace 3D trailer) or be monotone in an exaggerate way (like their Avatar trailer). However, Bailey doesn't get it quite right, as he isn't very exaggerate and (like many other things in the series) a lot more straight faced than the other narrators. This means that some of the jokes come off as flat and he isn't as entertaining a narrator as his predecessors.
However, the new Honest Trailers aren't completely awful. As I said, as plain reviews they're entertaining and offer some interesting points about certain films, like how in their Hunger Games: Catching Fire supposed feminist icon Katniss Everdeen is helped more by men than that title would imply. Also, there are still some good laughs here and there and some episodes are consistently funny too. And at the very least, they're at least very entertaining videos to watch and their USP is still a breath of fresh air on a platform (YouTube) whose content can become very redundant at points.
As such, while I do think Honest Trailers is no longer as funny as it once was, it's not bad. Far from it, as they're still entertaining critiques of popular movies with occasional laughs. Even so, I do feel that the show's best work is behind them, and now we have a subpar version of what came before. It's like eating at the Ritz and then afterwards eating very nice food at your local pub. Still good, but quite anaemic in comparison as to what came before. And hey, at least you're not eating at some crappy KFC, which is what the rest of YouTube can feel like sometimes.
