Sometimes, however, you get to see the extended version which is essentially the whole film in three minutes, key plot spoilers n all.
Which brings us to The Girl In The Spider's Web.
Hollywood has already failed spectacularly with their remake of the original Swedish version of the modern classic The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo — so spectacularly they didn't even bother with books two and three.
How fitting, then, that they should have another go with the appalling fourth book in the trilogy, one not actually written by Stieg Larsson but instead created posthumously from his notes.
Were once we had gritty, tense, violent film versions — ones which brought Noomi Rapace to our attention as Lisbeth Salandar and gave us Michael Nyqvist as the perfect Mikael Blomkvist — we were left with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig in a film that was just dull.
Now, we have Claire Foy's interpretation of the hacker of both men and computers.
And to be fair, she does a bang-up job.
While Rapace was the perfect person for the role, Foy does bring a damaged fragility and steely determination to the Swedish heroine, and to these ears at least the accent is up to the job.
Blomkvist, however, is another matter.
With Nyqvist we had exactly the shlubby, unhandsome womaniser we had fallen in love with in the books.
Now though, we get Sverrir Gudnason. A man too young and too good looking to play the part.
His complicated relationship with co-magazine conspirator Erika Berger (played here by the equally too-young Vicky Krieps) is all too believable.
Of course they'd be at it! Who wouldn't sleep with this man?
This is not the journalist of the books....
But such issues are minor niggles when looked upon as part of the whole, because the problems start with that trailer.
Both the extended version and the normal version contain a MASSIVE spoiler, one so huge you spend most of the film not only knowing who is going to turn up but you're second guessing as to when.
And this blows the whole thing out of the water, and robs us of what is supposed to be the big twist and reveal about halfway through.
Because once you know who Lisbeth is up against, you're not with her on the adventure, looking for clues, feeling the drama and tension build, you're just chewing your nails fully aware of what is to come.
There are also other problems, and all of them are in the writing if not the source material.
It is assumed, rightly or wrongly, from the off that we know who Lisbeth is — but if we do, then we know who Blomkvist is. And yet he gets random bits of expositional dialogue to fill in gaps that don't exist.
There are other clunky bits too, where those hard of thinking get basic plot points explained to them.
As for the story itself, Spider's Web is in essence an attempt to show us how a female Bond would play out.
Lisbeth has her gadgets (never explained), her bike (hello Ducati), her stolen car (good afternoon Lamborghini) and there are more chases and explosions than you can shake a taser at.
All of which would be fine if the story hadn't been ruined weeks ago when we sat down to watch something else...
Even forgetting all that, Spider's Web is not a great film.
Along with the issues already raised, the other major plot development has more holes in than the roof of Lisbeth's hideout, and the pace of the first three quarters of the film is just pedestrian.
On the plus side, the whole thing looks fantastic — and the inclusion of Yellow Bird (who did the original films) on the production side means this film has far more in common with its Swedish predecessors than would first appear to be the case.
The casting of Stephen Merchant may not seem to be the obvious choice but he's more than up to the job and is a surprisingly believable character.
The final quarter, however, is where the film comes alive.
Yes we've had Lisbeth running around an old building before, but this one works too and the use of flashbacks helps to increase the tension and we actually found our attention being held.
Yes, there's more Bond stuff going on. But this time round you're happy to go with it as fists and bullets fly with gay abandon.
While I hated the book, I was genuinely excited to see a new instalment because of my love for the original characters.
But even without the massive spoilers (did we mention this before?) this film lacks the true excitement, grit, sleaze and drama the original trilogy was known for.
Thankfully, though, this is unlikely to dent Foy's growing reputation as one of the finest actresses around today.
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