The Call of Duty series has always been an aesthetic delight, from its technicolour explosions to its bathos-ridden anti-war quotes preceding joyful renditions of combat, assassination and even mass murder (in what way was Spec Ops subversive, again?); but Modern Warfare was the first Call of Duty that went beyond being an exercise in gratifying titillation and flirted with beauty.
Released in the same year as 1917 and two years after Dunkirk and Darkest Hour, it is certainly a part of a new trend in war propaganda which aims to rehabilitate the notion of war as a way not simply to solve the immediate problems of the white man’s burden—I mean policing the world—but mass societal ones, too; and, supposedly anyway, the dangers associated with such solutions.
The artists behind Modern Warfare have no such pretentions (even if the writers and gameplay designers do). Modern Warfare is a visual feast inspired by war photography, snuff, propaganda and TV torture porn with absolutely nothing to say, allowing for its grotesque petals to truly bloom.
(Right-click open image in new tab for full-size versions.)
