Movie marketers can have a tough job convincing the viewing public to fork out for a cinema ticket – particularly when the critics think your movie is rubbish.

But, in a story that proves you can make lemonade out of lemons designers of the poster from Tom Hardy’s latest flick, Legend, hid the fact a British newspaper only gave the movie two stars.

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The movie, about notorious gangsters the Kray brothers, received a two-star rating from The Guardian‘s reviewer Benjamin Lee but was placed on the poster, behind the head of leading man Hardy, to look like there may actually be more stars.

“Incredible way of making my two star review seem like I didn’t hate the film,” Lee tweeted after seeing the poster.

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

Though the critic wasn’t amused, it seemed people online were more forgiving.

One Reddit commenter said: “It’s so f***ing clever, I’m not even mad about the deception.”

Legend hits Australian screens on October 8.