The new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic Dunkirk dropped on the internet today, after debuting at the preview screenings for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 last night (our spoiler-filled review of that is coming on Monday).
It’s just excellent, especially if you like Harry Styles, and if you’ve ever wanted to see Harry Styles almost die in a variety of ways.
While not as intensely dramatic as the first trailer they released (which, for our money, was one of the best teaser trailers ever released) or as melancholic as the second, this is still a pretty cool trailer. It’s meant to draw in the Guardians audience, and tone-matching, at least in terms of the action element, is important here.
Nolan’s commitment to large-format filmmaking has never quite had as perfect a match (though The Dark Knight and Interstellar fans may disagree), and his comments on the temporal structure of this film are about as interesting as this trailer itself. It’s a handy reminder that for all the flashy elements of this film and his others (impossibly beautiful effects work and cinematography, buzzworthy against-type performances, etc.), it’s his skills at balancing different and complicated events during the action of his work that makes him a top-tier filmmaker.
Here’s a synopsis: “Dunkirk opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in.”
Dunkirk, also starring Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy in addition to our boy Harry, hits theaters on July 21.