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Author: Admin | 2025-04-27
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.ScreenlandJust buy it, he seems to suggest; what are you, a wimp?Credit...Photo illustration by Mark WeaverPublished Feb. 2, 2022Updated Feb. 6, 2022“History,” Matt Damon says, “is filled with almosts.” He’s got a point. He is in a cavernous gallery space, delivering lines that almost make sense, with an affect that almost seems human. On the one hand, he tells us, the annals are haunted by “those who almost adventured, who almost achieved, but ultimately, for them, it proved to be too much.” Yet there are others: “the ones who embrace the moment and commit.”The language has a ripe flavor that is normally confined to halftime pep talks and voice-overs in History channel documentaries. But we are watching a commercial. As Damon speaks, a camera tracks his progress through a so-called Museum of Bravery. Apparitions appear: a mountain climber summiting an icy peak, an aviator manning a primitive flying machine, astronauts striding down a gangway. “In these moments of truth,” Damon intones, “these men and women — these mere mortals, just like you and me — as they peer over the edge, they calm their minds and steel their nerves with four simple words that have been whispered by the intrepid since the time of the Romans: Fortune favors the brave.”This is heady stuff. It’s also, clearly, expensive stuff. The C.G.I. effects are top-notch, and the services of a pitchman like Matt Damon don’t come cheap. But what, exactly, is Damon pitching? A self-driving car? Erectile-dysfunction pills? “The Martian 2,” starring Matt Damon? The questions hover, ominously, through nearly all 60 seconds of the commercial’s running time. It’s only in the final shot — as Damon
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