When a trailer begins with Joseph Gordon-Levitt jumping shirtless off a flaming diving board in slow motion while Metallica blares in the background, it seems pretty safe to assume that we're not dealing with the usual feel-good, barely-edgy Sundance comedy. Or so I thought. But in fact, about halfway through, the Metallica self-consciously stops, and after that, it's hard to be so sure.
Levitt indeed looks like great fun here, and if any well-liked star can nail the part of a heavy metal burnout with homemade tattoos, it's him. As his work in Brick and Mysterious Skin showed, Levitt is an expert at taking offbeat roles that most actors would play with winks and nudges and actually making them totally plausible. It's also fun to see Portman threaten to punch a kid, though she does look woefully out of place in this preview overall. Rainn Wilson mostly looks sad here, but he's good at that.
However, the second half of the trailer suggests a much tidier film than the first, one where families will be reunited, depressed children will be cheered up and Levitt's character will be played only for laughs. There's nothing totally wrong with this, but after the chaos of the first half, it's a bit disappointing to see the film take a more crowd-pleasing route. The trailer is also so self-conscious about the material, it's practically begging to be revered as a cult classic, which is something that authentic cult classics should generally not need to do.
But in all fairness, it's also possible that S.T. Vanairsdale's luke-warm reaction out of Sundance is influencing my perspective on all of this a bit.
Verdict: Kill...some of 'em?