I was dubious at the sight of The Great Gatsby's new character posters the other day, and now my head-scratching is beginning to hurt. Here's the new trailer for Baz Luhrmann's candy-colored extravaganza.

Let's reflect on the casting first. Does everyone seem just a little too right for these roles? Tobey Maguire is again the precocious naif, a direct reboot of his Spider-Man role. Carey Mulligan is again the beautiful mess, which is what she played in Shame. And Leonardo DiCaprio is giving off so much Howard Hughes-meets-the-guy-from-Catch Me if You Can realness that I'm basically disappointed. These are classic literary characters, and in the hands of Luhrmann's actors, they're turned into easy stock roles, and ones they've played before.

But let's focus on DiCaprio, who is certainly giving the most, er, notable performance here. After J. Edgar, did he decide his greatest acting tick was Aspergian awkwardness? Everything that comes out of Gatsby's mouth in this trailer is so stilted that 1) Nick Carraway would figure out his dastardly secrets right away, and 2) he's much less intriguing than he should be. I don't see a character with thundering depth here. I see broad face-acting, and while that might be a logical part of Gatsby's artificiality, it should be more endearing than obviously phony. This is one of the rare occasions in which I might claim that Robert Redford is the better actor. And you know I can't stand Three Days of the Condor until Faye Dunaway appears.

And by the way, that screamo cover of "Happy Together" is about the most repulsive movie trailer anthem since... gosh, "Vindicated" from Spider-Man 2? Tobey Maguire, apologize this instant!

But there's one thing I did enjoy in this trailer: the absinthe glow of it all. Just twisted enough.

What say you?