The Great Gatsby may have just given us the greatest trailer in the history of film. It’s hard to imagine the movie keeping up, or even fulfilling all the fanboys (is that what they call F. Scott Fitzgerald fans?) who will complain about how it compares to the book, how DiCaprio compares to Redford, or how the thing wasn’t good just because they didn’t want it to be.

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“The Great Gatsby” (2012) starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Carey Mulligan

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Oh, and is there a more polarizing filmmaker than Baz Luhrmann?

His greatest successes have been films like Moulin Rouge! and Romeo & Juliet, while Australia and others of that ilk have been panned, oddly for the same reason that his well-reviewed epics have been heralded. Australians didn’t like Australia, because they didn’t like how it portrayed them. They said it was inaccurate. That’s just because they weren’t all drunk, listening to house music, and watching tennis.

But, this is where we are now. The trailer is the film, and no director makes movies that make trailers like Luhrmann. The trailer means more than the film. Is it a problem?

(*The damn thing has been out for 24 hours and already has over 1,500,000 views. We can already call this film amazing, even if it isn’t.)

The casting of Carey Mulligan of Daisy is perhaps more perfect a choice than anything… well, ever. Tobey Maguire is a spot-on Nick Carraway. Maguire’s always been that nerdy-ish guy who is actually cool, but he’s just not “Leo Cool.”

(*Even when he says, “The morals were looser and the liquor was cheaper,” we just can’t not think of Peter Parker, and maybe that’s perfect. Nick Carraway is Peter Parker, but without Mary Jane.)

How perfect, then, that DiCaprio plays Gatsby, the man Nick Carraway harbours a legendary man crush on. DiCaprio feels a little too mean for Gatsby, since as “Great” as the man is he’s really more of a fool hopelessly in love with a flighty blonde bird. So, as long as he channels Romeo, he should be fine.

As Guy Stagg said, writing for The Daily Telegraph today:

“The Great Gatsby is all about imagination. The characters create enchanted, deluded visions of one another… In our minds the characters become far more vivid than anything on the page.”

Well, actually, DiCaprio is perfect. Luhrmann’s vision – according to his preview – is perfect. It’s all right there. It makes you scream for the 1920′s.

And, how about Jack White’s voice pumping “Love is Blindness” through your veins and arteries?

The fact is, as good as this may possibly be, it won’t match the trailer, just like walking on the moon didn’t match the take-off. “Oh, he’s just bouncing?”

The fact is, even if this takes off and reaps critics’ praises (it won’t), they’ll still say that Midnight in Paris was the better Fitzgerald adaptation.

You can’t make a trailer like this and expect us to not complain about. Everything’s here. The fateful car chase. The line, “What Gatsby?” Mulligan’s doe-like face. Maguire’s naive wonder in the world of the Eggs. The Green Light in the final shot.

It’s just right on. We almost don’t even need to see the film. And, that’s the problem.