Paint by Numbers

I remember an interview way back before Beverly Hills Cop 2 came out. Eddie Murphy was promoting his new movie, and he said something like, "People loved the first movie, so we took everything they liked in the first movie, and made it bigger in the second one." Now, I was pretty young, but I remember thinking at the time that seems to miss the point. You can't just paint by numbers, we need a bigger explosion here, we need this & that, and expect a movie to be better. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwPJCt-am6I&feature=player_embedded]

I feel the same way about this ad. In theory it has the right approach, it's trying to appeal to emotion with shots of kids and families, trying to engage our outrage, but the whole spot is just... I don't know, flat. It's soulless.

It's not that script is so bad or the images stink, it's just doesn't add up to a good spot or even mediocre spot. Now, the voice over doesn't help at all, the narrator sounds like she's on ambient. The spot has no energy or hook, there's nothing memorable about it.

That leads me to another point, to call the bill Affordable Health Care Act instead of health care reform is an interesting choice. On one hand I applaud the effort to embrace a new frame, Health Care Reform has been branded Obama Care with all it's death panels and job killing effects. On the other hand, even though I know they're talking about Health Care Reform, I find the ad confusing, I don't really know what they're talking about. Maybe I don't connect it in my mind to my support of Health Care Reform, it almost feels like a whole new issue.

This ad is one of those rare birds that's actually worse than the sum of it's parts. Like Eddie Murphy learned, it's not enough to have bigger explosions and expect your movie to be better, you actually need something authentic and fresh to engage an audience.