Tom Hanks A Hologram for the King

Being Tom Tykwer‘s follow-up to the (whatever else you might think of it) outside-the-box Cloud Atlas and Netflix’s great Sense8, I’d assumed that A Hologram for the King, mysterious title and all, would continue something those two similarly minded works started. If the WB-provided trailer — and, let’s be honest, that “Based on the Novel By Dave Eggers” credit — are any indication, though, this is not so much a consciousness-bending work as it is Tom Hanks‘ shot at his own Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

What starts with the actor’s rendition of Talking Heads’ “Once In a Lifetime,” as good a start as any, turns into something about being a middle-aged white person finding yourself in a foreign land — including, best of all, a voiceover telling us, “Sometimes you have to change your scenery… to change your life.” But let’s give this the benefit of the doubt. Tykwer’s proven himself a flexible visual storyteller too often to just be discarded, and Hanks, if only on the recent evidence of Bridge of Spies, remains America’s most dependable movie star. Those things matter, as much as the material herein is trying to make another case.

See the trailer below (via Movie Clips):

a hologram for the king poster

A Hologram for the King will open on April 22.

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