The first trailer for highly-anticipated summer blockbuster movie Babylon has arrived, with A-listers Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt going all out in an ode to Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Reuniting after their Once Upon A Time … in Hollywood 2019 epic, the co-stars feature heavily in an uncensored Paramount Pictures trailer alongside newcomer Diego Calva, who plays a Mexican immigrant and Hollywood outsider Manny Torres.
Setting the scene for what’s in store, Australian actress Robbie, 32, plays a wild-haired fictitious Nellie LaRoy, who indulges in a drug-snorting session with Torres, saying “I just want for everyone to party forever”.
“It’s written in the stars: I am a stars … if I had money, I would only spend it on things that were fun, you know? Not boring things like taxes.”
As far as first-release trailers go, it gives us a taste of 1920s Hollywood as stars craved fortune and fame amid the crucial transition from silent films to talkies.
And it’s certainly got everyone … talking.
With a massive ensemble cast including Jean Smart (Hacks), Tobey Maguire (Spiderman), Max Minghella (The Handmaid’s Tale), Rory Scovel (Physical), Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts), Flea (Red Hot Chilli Peppers bassist, Obi Wan Kenobi), Samara Weaving (Nine Perfect Strangers) and Olivia Wilde (Don’t Worry Darling), it’s a hedonistic deep dive into the parties, the mayhem and chaos of the era.
Paramount says it’s a story of “outsized ambition and outrageous excess”, tracing “the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity”.
“It’s an unbelievably wild interpretation of a Hollywood of yesteryear and an undeniably fun trip,” wrote Collider.
One fan nailed it: “This was actually a really good trailer, showed a lot of the chaos that’s about to unfold without actually revealing too much”.
‘Extremely bonkers’
Let’s unpack that chaos.
Pitt, 58, who plays big-time movie star Jack Conrad, is a cocktail mix of what we all loved about the decadence and indulgence of The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street.
“When I first moved to LA, signs on all the doors read: ‘No actors and no dogs allowed’,” he says in the film.
Then he has a “Eureka” moment.
“I am not alone,” he says in his next line before shooting off a gun in his loungeroom.
He dances in his baggy white underwear and off a balcony after another big night of partying.
Director Damien Chazelle (La La Land, First Man) told Vanity Fair recently his co-star Robbie has a “brash, bold edge” to her, a style which she embraces wholeheartedly in Babylon.
She sucks the oxygen out of the room on a nightclub’s dance floor in a floor-length bright red gown, gets into a whole lot of trouble along the way, and ends up asking the best question at a poolside after-party.
“Who wants to see me fight a f–king snake,” she asks the hangers-on.
Pitt’s character is quick to respond: “F–k yeah”.
“[There’s] so much more chaos [which] consumes the extremely bonkers first trailer.
“Compared to the high-gloss contemporary Los Angeles featured in Chazelle’s Oscar-winner La La Land, the LA in Babylon looks like a big fat line of uncut hedonism,” says Rolling Stone.
Fans were certainly looking forward to seeing more of Robbie.
“I’m overwhelmed how Margot can portray so easily many characters, she puts herself in a situation that has to be appreciated. She’s amazing in everything she does,” one enthused online.
Babylon premieres in cinemas nationally from January 19
