Taylor Swift is a Superhero in Stunning Bad Blood Video

Posted on May 18, 2015

Taylor Swift's new video for Bad Blood is here and it's absolutely amazing. Taking elements from comic books, classic sf films and spy thrillers, the video raises the bar for music videos. The scene opens in deserted office space at night. Catastrophe (Taylor Swift) and Arsyn (Selena Gomez) are on a mission to retrieve a mysterious silver briefcase. They fight off businessmen in grey suits and black domino masks and retrieve the case. But at the last minute, Arsyn betrays Catastrophe. She blows knockout powder into Catastrophe's face and kicks her out the window where she falls twenty stories onto a parked car.

This looks like the end for Catastrophe, but she somehow ends up back at a high tech, white lab. Dressed in a skimpy white outfit reminiscent of the classic scene from Luc Besson's The Fifth Element when Mila Jovovich's Leeloo is wearing a Jean Paul Gaultier bandage outfit. Catastrophe is healed by a computerized machine. She's then outfitted for battle by the Trinity (Hailey Steinfeld), who make sure she's ready to fight.

At the Headquarters for this mysterious female superhero organization, Catastrophe interacts with some of the rest of the team, such as Dilemma (Serayah), Slay-Z (Gigi Hadid), Destructa X (Ellie Goulding), Homeslice (Martha Hunt), Mother Chucker (Cara Delavigne) Cut-Throat (Zendaya) and The Crimson Curse (Paramore's Hayley Williams), who is wearing a navy blue version of Leeloo's outfit, complete with red hair.

Catastrophe fights with Frostbyte (Lily Aldridge) using bladed weapons in the snow, boxes with Knockout (Karlie Kloss), then suits up in black leather with Domino (Jessica Alba) for a motorcycle race that is an homage to classic Tron motorcycle sequence. Jessica pulls off her helmet and gives a hair shake, just like she used to do on Dark Angel, the James Cameron sf tv show that launched her career.

In the hallway she meets some of the more experienced members of the organization: Justice (Mariska Hargitay), Luna (Ellen Pompeo) and The Headmistress (Cindy Crawford). The team heads out for a final confrontation with Arsyn and her minions. The confrontation is set against a post-apocalyptic, burning landscape that would do Michael Bey proud.

Commenting on events is Welvin Da Great (Kendrick Lamar), who appears to be in the higher echelons of management in the organization. Lucky Fiori (Lena Dunham) is a crime boss who is seen behind a desk smoking a cigar in a nod to Sin City.

The video was directed by Joseph Kahn, who directed the video for Taylor's "Blank Space." The cinematography, the costumes, the action and the noir/futuristic/superhero/comics vibe is compelling. We have one complaint: why isn't this video longer? We want to know more about the mysterious organization that Catastrophe works for. Who is Arsyn and why did she betray Catastrophe? A fun note: Taylor says that each actress picked her own character name and persona. She chose Catastrophe because she loves cats. This also explains how Ellen Pompeo and Mariska Hargitay ended up in the video: Taylor's cats are named after Taylor's favorite television characters, Dr. Meredith Grey and Detective Olivia Benson.

Take a look:


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