Delayed almost a week due to efforts on "perfecting" the finished version, veteran music video director Francis Lawrence finally delivers on Beyoncé's "Run The World (Girls)".
It's hard to determine what exactly happened during now and the initially announced release date of "Run The World (Girls)" seven days ago. The official statement "Beyoncé was working on perfecting it" is rather ominous and leaves the impression that something seriously went wrong during production. Be that as it may, the video is solid, but neither among Beyoncé's nor Lawrence's best.
"Run The World (Girls)" is pretty much reduced to dance performances conducted by choreographers Frank Gatson and Sheryl Murakami. They did an amazing job creating a staggering accumulation of vibrant bodies shaking their limbs synchronous to the pounding beat. It's energetic, it's sexy, and -most importantly- it's pretty raw; more hiphop than "gaga-esque".
From a technical point of view, "Run The World (Girls)" is quite an interesting piece: The average shot length is very high for a contemporary music video and in some scenes the director barely switches between different angles and focal lenghts. The idea of reducing editing speed in order to support the impression left by the dancing sequences is efficient, and I think it works pretty well. All in all, the video is nicely filmed and composed.
But when it comes to set design, costumes and props; in fact when it come to the whole "post-apocalyptic scenery"; the video leaves a bit of a disappointing aftertaste.
How many times do we have to see Tupac and Dr. Dre's "California Love" video get recycled? Not so long ago, P!nk did exactly the same thing in her "Funhouse" video, directed by Dave Meyers. Is it so hard to think of something new? (Yeah, it is.)
Anyway, "Run the World (Girls)" is a well executed, captivating music video which surely will succeed in promoting Beyoncé's new album "4" (June 28th), and more importantly, it will diffuse some of the ongoing controversy about the song's monotonous quality and edginess.
Rating (3/5)
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