This ad is, in our humble estimation, brilliant for at least four reasons.
1. The sly meta narrative — all the world is an ultravivid post-apocalyptic first person shooter simulacrum and we are all merely players — meta-narrated with unshakeable savoir faire by Michael B. Jordan, despite shit blowing up all around him. “What, y’all don’t know about Kevin?” he asks, like we didn’t just show up. Kevin is the doughy ginger manboy robot-slayer fucking shit up real good in the commercial. He is a stand-in for you and me or anyone else who will play the game.
2. The music. When you are selling ultraviolent nihilistic fantasia you better pony up for the ultimate song about fucking shit up, “Paint It Black” by The Rolling Stones. Given that the Stones are men of wealth and taste who’ve been around for a long, long year and stole many a man’s soul and faith — it could not have been cheap. Good thing video games did $100 billion in sales last year.
3. The honesty. Let’s not kid ourselves, most dudes who play Call Of Duty don’t look like Vin Diesel, they look like Patton Oswalt. As does Kevin, that’s what makes him relateable.
4. The payback. Apparently, the girls who play Call Of Duty all look like Cara Delevigne, who shows up at the end and literally blows away Kevin with the shock wave of her Thor-like stomp on the terra and then struts away with Matrix-ian swagger. Now it’s her turn to be the destroyer of worlds. This is clearly a well-deserved ‘fuck you’ to the troglodytic gynophobes of Gamergate. Payback is a bitch, loaded for bear.