[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwehC_EuN-k]
Twilight fans don’t have to wait until the fall to see Robert Pattinson looking a bit vampiric: he also pulls out the sharp and sinister look as the star of David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, in theaters Aug. 17. In the new trailer for the movie, an adaptation of a 2003 Don DeLillo novel, Pattinson trades his Cullen sparkle for the eerie blue luminescence of technology. Or, as the trailer puts it, “the glow of cyber capital.”
Most of the movie takes place inside a massive limo, in which Pattinson’s character, billionaire banker Eric Packer, is trying to make his way across Manhattan. And talk about gridlock: his way is impeded by traffic, political protests, run-ins with other people, the loss of his own fortune, nightclubs, assassins, a bunch of guns, strobe lights, sex—and what looks like sex-play with tasers. (Um, ouch.)
The Cronenberg-style paranoia at the center of the film is made unmistakable by the creepy electronica that plays throughout the trailer. And the film version updates the original story, which takes place in 2000, to make sure that paranoia is ultra modern. (For example, the novel’s financial disaster has to do with betting against the Japanese yen; in the movie, it’s the Chinese yuan.) From the trailer alone, the moral of the story is pretty clear: real New Yorkers—even billionaires—know they’re better off taking the subway.
(MORE: Richard Corliss on Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis)