'Red' Trailer'

Above is the link to the trailer for 'Red', one of the greatest action-comedy movies ever made. While the movie was fantastic to watch, the one thing that captured my interest is what occurs in the trailer. From (0:00-0:20), the video opens up to a few camera shots of a mansion with it's fantastic view next to the river and goes into the interior of the mansion, which is equally impressive. The camera is then diverted to the conversation protagonist Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and his friend Victoria (Helen Mirren) are having where Frank is obviously stupefied as he praises Victoria on her accomplishment to acquire such a luxurious life in her retirement. As all of this occurs, classical music can be heard in the background while Victoria expresses how she loves her new life as she is now interested in baking, flower arrangement, etc. Now, any viewer such as myself--who was, at the time, oblivious to the fact that 'Red' was an action-comedy-- who automatically get the impression that this movie would revolve around the lives of retired people as they sit around and talk about their retirement. However, this delusion is effaced with ease at (0:21), where you see Mirren suddenly on top of a mini-gun turret, shooting at two cars passing by her.

To be frank, this left me speechless. The trailer first had this soothing feeling to it as the music seemed to comfort you while you witnessed the luxurious setting when all of a sudden, you get smacked in the face when you think to yourself, "oh wait, there are a ton of guns in this movie." I, for one, did not see it coming. This experience is not unique for this trailer alone, either. There seems to be a tread of movie commercials that start out with one setting and completely transitions, suddenly or not, into a different atmosphere. This is a quite different to trailers to movies that were made around the time we were born, where we were basically told what the movie was about the moment the trailer began. Just shows how the media, along with most aspects of our lives, tends to evolve along with civilization.