A new teaser-trailer for Christopher Nolan's upcoming film Dunkirk suggests the Second World War thriller could be the blockbuster to look out for in 2017, especially for fans still mourning One Direction...
Nolan's work spans intense indie dramas such as Memento, the superhero genre-shifting Dark Knight Trilogy and mind-bending sci-fi blockbusters Inception and Interstellar.
For Dunkirk, he has turned his attention to the real-life story of the 1940 battle, where more than 300,000 Allied troops were saved from the Nazis. According to Den of Geek, the director is still shooting around the UK.
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The official synopsis for the film is light on detail, but it gives the audience a sense of the nail-biting drama to follow: "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."
It stars Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance and Harry Styles.
Wait, did you say Harry Styles, the dude from One Direction?, asks Sean Hutchinson on Inverse. "Yep, it seems Harry has a lot of time on his hands now that 1D is kaput, and when one of the most talented film directors in the world comes calling for something other than your alleged singing skills you just have to answer."
Styles is known for his flowing locks, continues the journalist, yet paparazzi shots from the set make it seem "the young Brit heartthrob fits in just as well if he were born over 70 years ago".
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While the new "announcement trailer" runs to barely a minute, it gives us the first official footage from the film.
Amid lots of shots of a cold, grey, windswept beach, a lonely soldier walks towards the sea against the sound of a ticking clock - or is it a bomb? There are scenes of troops on a boat and one soldier looking up at the sky. As the shrill sound of a falling bomb becomes clear, the troops duck for cover.
The cryptic clip starts with a seemingly innocuous shot of sea foam washing up on the beach, but the tension quickly mounts, says Althea Legaspi at Rolling Stone. Between scenes, inter-titles flash ominous phrases, such as: "At the point of crisis..."; "At the point of annihilation...", and "Survival is victory", before ending on a cliff-hanger.
It's all appropriately harrowing, says Madeleine Davies in Jezebel. "That said, it’s offensively Harry-less."Also missing are the film's other stars, including Hardy, Rylance and Murphy, notes Davies.
"Heed this, Nolan," she warns. "I demand to see my Harry in the next trailer and - war movie or not - there better not be a greasy hair harmed on his newly shorn head."
Dunkirk is expected to be released in cinemas in July 2017.
