Finally, there’s a US trailer for Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Which, to a lot of you will mean: finally, there’s a trailer that gives too much away and tries to hard to sell the movie as something it might not be. But that’s neither here nor there. In fact, it’s not a problem at all. This is almost exactly the same as the UK trailer that arrived in August. A few insignificant seconds longer, that’s all. It’s quite a lovely trailer, really, especially in that it hints at the notion that this might be a highly imaginative, magical piece of film while not going all ghoulish with the fact that it is Heath Ledger’s final performance. It’s tasteful, really, and I appreciate that. Plus there’s a healthy dose of Tom Waits (I’m always such an easy mark for him) and a good indication of the presence of Ledger’s surrogates Colin Farrell, Jude Law and Johnny Depp.

And, as things go, this trailer is equally restrained in the sense that it doesn’t seem to give the whole bloody film to you in a basket. There’s enough to suggest that it might be Gilliam’s most fantastic movie (in the purest sense of the word) since Munchausen, and that’s just fine. Beyond that there’s just enough plot to hang the images on.

In case you missed it, we’ve run quite a glowing review of the film from Brendon. I can’t speak to his position on the thing, because I haven’t seen it. If you just want the basics (and have somehow missed those, too) here they are in brief:

In the present day, immortal 1,000-year-old Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) leads a traveling theatre troupe—including a sleight of hand expert, Anton (Andrew Garfield), and a dwarf, Percy (Verne Troyer)—that offers audience members a chance to go beyond reality through a magical mirror in his possession. Parnassus had been able to guide the imagination of others through a deal with the Devil (Tom Waits), who now comes to collect on the arrangement, targeting the doctor’s daughter (Lily Cole). The troupe, which is joined by a mysterious outsider named Tony (portrayed by Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell), embark through parallel worlds to rescue the girl.

Head to Yahoo to see the trailer in HD.