Zack Snyder’s The Last Photograph Is Probably A Good Movie, But The First Trailer Feels Like Homework
Zack Snyder is not a director who deals freely in withstrained minimalism, and may have never even thought about those two words close together like that. (Who else could have given us a nearly four-hour Justice League revision?) After helming three movies for Netflix, the filmmaker went to work on a passion project, the drama-filled action thriller The Last Photograph, which now has its first 3-minute trailer that gives fans roughly 366,000 quick shots from the 2027 release. And while it looks like a solid and eye-catching project, the promo is ki-i-i-ind of a homework-esque slog.
Go ahead and give the NSFW trailer watch above, and see if you agree or not, and then keep on reading regardless of what side you fall on.
The Last Photograph’s Trailer Is Violent And Dramatic, But Fails To Make The Story Clear
Obviously anyone who wants to know what The Last Photograph will be about can just bop over to Wikipedia or IMDb to get a synopsis, but I feel like the first trailer released for any movie has the onus of giving audiences a clear idea of what they’re meant to be getting into. And while this preview successfully imparts setting and tone, it’s hard to know what’s actually happening and/or who any of these people are. So yeah, I gotta hit up a press release now, which basically is homework.
In The Last Photograph, Rebel Moon‘s Stuart Martin portrays former DEA operative Ethan Black, who is scouring mountains in South America to track down his missing niece and newphew following the murders of their parents. He enlists the assistance of a war photograph (played by fellow Rebel Moon vet Fra Fee) who’d previously seen the killers, and they embark on a journey that pushes Ethan’s mental state to the brink as he loses his grip on reality and faces skeletons of his past.
I dunno that I automatically would have picked any of that up from the trailer, though some of those details do align with the events that play out visually. What isn’t helping is that the trailer barely incorporates any dialogue or diagetic audio from the movie. Instead, a sweeping piece of the score (presumably composed by Hans Zimmer) ramps up in intensity as the lyrics of Nick Cave’s “I Have Trembled My Way Deep” are read out.
And sure, I get that this logline isn’t the most fun and fancy-free narrative to sink one’s toes into, So maybe everyone involved wanted to just immerse potential audiences in all the visual splendor before breaking the story out with a later preview.
The Last Photograph Is A Passion Project For Snyder, And It Shows
Snyder, who stoked DC fan fervor with a recent visit to Warner Bros. that ended up just being a screening-hosting, has been aiming to make The Last Photograph a reality for many years now. He reportedly first set it up for himself in the mid-2000s as a post-300 vehicle, with Christian Bale and Sean Penn temporarily attached to the project around 2011. At some point, the rights lapsed, though he regained them around 2016, when he once again aimed to start up production.
Jump forward nine years or so, and The Last Photograph had new life, with Martin and Fee cast as the co-leads. And it’s very clear that Snyder put a ton of effort and love and dedication into the project, as the myriad shots that go by in the trailer all look gorgeous and crisp. As it often goes with the director’s movies, the violence and bloodshed are stylized but still affecting and gruesome.
But textbooks can be gorgeously photographed and superbly written, while still always feeling like textbooks. I’m hoping that by the time the second trailer comes out after The Last Photograph premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, we’ll get to hear audio and actors from the movie itself, and not just a dramatic song reading.
With a screenplay penned by Snyder collaborator Kurt Johnstad, The Last Photograph doesn’t yet have a final runtime noted, but you can just tell that it’ll be nearly 3 hours long. Here’s hoping enough people flock to theaters to see it that Snyder gets swayed into taking on any follow-up project that isn’t the Escape from New York remake that he floated out there earlier this year. I’d even take him joining James Gunn‘s DCU to finally direct a Batman movie before getting firmly behind the idea of a new Snake Plissken.
The Last Photograph also doesn’t yet have a release date locked down for domestic audiences, but it will be making its world premiere at TIFF on September 13, 2026.
