YOUNG ONES trailers preview atmospheric post-apocalyptic epic

Michael Shannon protects his family in first Young Ones trailers

Great post-apocalyptic films are few and far between, so it’s nice when movies like Young Ones come along to re-ignite the genre. What’s even better is when you get an excellent cast attached to something like this, and Young Ones has some familiar faces wandering and surviving this dried up, scorched Earth wasteland. I’m hooked. There’s something about Michael Shannon wielding a shotgun and having a robot dog-like work companion that makes the movie look very appealing.

Watch two different trailers for Young Ones after the jump.

Here’s a nice, clear French trailer for Young Ones:

And here’s a much blurrier premiere trailer that shows you a little more of the film:

It’s fun to imagine this movie taking place somewhere else in The Book of Eli world, with Denzel Washington doing his thing not far away, and the two could make a great double viewing.

Here’s an unofficial plot synopsis for Young Ones from the movie’s IMDb page:

Set in a near future when water has become the most precious and dwindling resource on the planet, one that dictates everything from the macro of political policy to the detailed micro of interpersonal family and romantic relationships. The land has withered into something wretched. The dust has settled on a lonely, barren planet. The hardened survivors of the loss of Earth’s precious resources scrape and struggle. Ernest Holm Michael Shannon lives on this harsh frontier with his children, Jerome Kodi Smit-McPhee and Mary Elle Fanning. He defends his farm from bandits, works the supply routes, and hopes to rejuvenate the soil. But Mary’s boyfriend, Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult), has grander designs. He wants Ernest’s land for himself, and will go to any length to get it. From writer/director Jake Paltrow comes a futuristic western, told in three chapters, which inventively layers Greek tragedy over an ethereal narrative that’s steeped deeply in the values of the American West.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any official U.S. release date, but it looks like it’ll hit theaters in the U.K., Canada, and France on August 13th. Hopefully that means we’ll see the film stateside before the end of the summer! Young Ones stars Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning, and Kodi Smit-McPhee.