I’ll overlook a lot in a trailer – in fact, I have to do that often, given how many trailers I consume in a given day as part of my job. Still, sometimes a moment or a line will pop up that simply can’t be ignored, whether it’s because it’s too good or, as in this case, too stupid.
As the final trailer for Amazon Prime Video’s Heads of State opens, it cuts in with some witty voiceover from Sharlto Copley, who clearly has a small but telling role to play in the movie. He explains who the main characters played Idris Elba and John Cena are, and calls Elba the “UK’s Prime Minister, AKA the President of England”, and I’m sorry but that’s just way too dumb for me to cope with.
Whether it’s forcing American state frameworks onto every other country, or erasing the small matter of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it’s the sort of line that actually makes your eyes bug out a little as you process it. I’ve no doubt that whoever wrote it was aiming for exactly that effect, but I don’t think that erases how mind-bendingly annoying it is.
If you’re willing or able to get past it, the rest of the trailer underlines again that this looks like a huge slice of dumb fun for action movie fans with Prime Video subscriptions (or the willingness to sign up). Elba and Cena get stranded in hostile territory when a joint flight on Air Force One gets shot down, and need the help of a small band of MI6 agents to get out of dodge.
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There are a couple of sequences in the trailer that actually seem really fun, like a montage whizzing through how one character got out of a sticky situation to be around for the main plot. In fact, some of the side-on shots of her on a bike almost remind me of Barbie in how they’re constructed, as absurd a comparison as that might seem.
We’ll see if anything in the full movie can match that for invention when it arrives on 2 July – and I slightly doubt it will. Still, there’s a huge market for fun movies like this, as demonstrated by how many of the other best streaming services are striving to produce them too.
