The Dictator

So far the build-up to Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator has so far been doled out in production stills mining comedy from Cohen's facial hair, trailers making jokes about Kim Kardashian's body hair, and Cohen ruffling Ryan Seacrest's once-impenetrable hair by spilling "Kim Jong Il's ashes" on him. And in the last few days, Cohen's character has dabbled in even more manufactured controversy involving political leaders, including showing up at CinemaCon—where he claimed to have severed Roger Ebert's thumbs (and testicle) and planted plastic explosives—and releasing a controversial UK trailer where he congratulated the Queen on her "blood diamond jubilee" by saying he hoped it would be a "smooth transition" when Prince Charles kills her and seizes the throne. The just-debuted opening scene from Cohen's latest attempt at explicitly scripted storytelling doesn't skimp on that hair-related humor nor reality-blurring intermingling as it covers the rise to power of General Aladeen, but there's some new stuff in there as well—including cameos from President Obama and The Daily Show's Aaasif Mandvi, plus that full standout Olympics scene from the preview. To borrow a joke from the clip, like everything else Cohen has done thus far, it paints the film in a very Aladeen light.