It's a lot rarer and more difficult for a film to match up with its marketing campaign.
It seems easy, but it's not. There are two big examples in the last two years (the two examples are at the bottom after the Pacific Rim review).
If you read about the premise about Pacific Rim, if you watched the trailers, and if you listened to the word of mouth, then you should absolutely not be surprised or disappointed when you see a 1,000,000 pound mech suit/robot fighting a similarly sized monster from a wormhole from an alternate dimension.
The movie gives you pretty much exactly what it promises: there are multiple robots, multiple monsters, intentionally cheesy lines (including a cheese-fest monologue about "canceling the apocalypse!"), cheesy storylines ("for my family!"), and cheesy characters (the "rock star" scientist vs. the traditional "nerdy" scientist), fantastic CGI (half the movie was either in the rain or underwater, and water is an absolute nightmare for CGI companies, but the film made the water look seamlessly realistic). The only thing that is "missing" is a romantic storyline, and that was actually refreshing and relatively original for a movie with a male and female costar-tandem with sexual tension, yet not even a kiss is portrayed in the film (but they didn't advertise that there would be any romance, so it was on point).
So, if the film gave you exactly what you paid for, then I say it deserves a five star rating. It's not supposed to be The Godfather, nor did it pretend or advertise it self to be. As a film in terms of the technical and artistic aspects, then admittedly I would have a hard time giving it a legitimate five-star review. But it gets five stars because it delivered on all fronts promised in its marketing campaign, and this is a review for iTunes and prospective buyers and not an artsy review for the New York Times.
Now, regarding marketing campaigns of films, specifically 1) how trailers can mess up a good film, and 2) how difficult it is for a film to live up to its trailers, I offer the two following examples:
First, is Edge of Tomorrow. That film had a marketing campaign that focused on action and Tom Cruise, and the action seemed totally bland and uninspired (nothing wrong with focusing on Tom Cruise, since he's a huge box office draw).
It got good reviews from critics and AMAZING reviews from those who watched the film. It's one of the best alien movies in the last 25 years and one of the most original (yes, it's an adaptation of a manga, but that doesn't mean that the film it self cannot the original when compared to other films). Despite the quality and the high marks from the critics and the audience, the film tanked. Why? Because it did not advertise enough about the fascinating premise of the "Groundhog Day" time loop, nor did it advertise that the film wouldn't take itself too seriously and that it would actually be a pretty funny movie (it really feels like Groundhog Day mixed with Aliens and Starship Troopers -- who WOULDN'T wants to watch that?).
The second example is Man of Steel. The trailers made it seem like it was going to be an in-depth character study into Superman and Clark Kent, which would be PHENOMENAL. Even Marvel hasn't made a movie like this, other than the first Iron Man film, which explored Tony Stark, his responsibilities and the legacy in the world, and whether he has earned the right to put on the Iron Man suit. I was looking forward to a film exploring Kal's internal struggles, and his rocky path to EARNING the right to suit up in his Superman suit, ab right and responsibility of protecting earth.
Instead, we get half of a movie that is a complete mess (it jumps all over the place in both space AND time, so there's no narrative), and another house that is just all action with little to no plot. Basically, the marketing campaign made the film look like it was going to be a lot better than it actually was. Obviously, I don't blame marketing (if anything, I give the marketing department the highest praise for creating such phenomenal trailers despite working with only scenes from the movie), I blame the director, Zack Snyder, for making such a disappointing film (The amazing trailers just show that Zack Snyder SHOT/HAD the material and scenes to make a good movie, but he edited the film terribly. There are probably beautiful scenes left on the cutting room floor, and if Snyder added those scenes and spent more time and effort in editing the movie into a coherent story, then we might actually get the Superman film that was promoted in the trailers).
