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Culture

VIDEO: Watch Toronto get blown up during an alien invasion (you certainly won’t be watching it for The Darcys’ music)

By Kevin Naulls
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No, Michael Bay did not direct and shoot the most recent music video effort by The Darcys, which sees Toronto collapsing during an alien invasion. It sure seems like it though, because the movie-like video, no doubt inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind or something like it, relies solely on special effects to carry it. A recurring shot of a teetering CN Tower broken at the neck seems odd, considering the rest of the city skyline remains intact—since when are aliens so selective? We can just imagine what director Mike Portoghese was thinking: “Hey, you know what would be wicked cool? Blowing our entire budget making it look like the CN Tower is falling. And fire, there should be lots of fire.” The story feels rushed—surely they could have chosen a song lengthy enough to suit a music video about a city in the throes of being blown up, instead of editing the song down to fit into a very tight three-minute package treating a three-minute song as an epic. We also think the music gets completely lost, because the band has made a huge effort to validate itself by showing that video has not killed the radio star (with Die Hard–like fire and Titanic-like final goodbyes). Shame on us: first Resident Evil suckered us in with its blown-up city hall, and now this.

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