Today, Nicki Minaj released the video for her song "Pills N Potions," a single from her upcoming album The Pink Print. Here are my initial impressions of the video after watching it just one time.
1. After that beat in the beginning, I was expecting Nicki to burst out of the gate rapping, but I guess not. Her verse on Kanye West's "Monster" was the best thing about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but she's a pretty good singer, too.
2. Was that rabbit supposed to be catching the Pez? Or maybe those are the titular pills. They were all white, after all, and I don't even know if they make white Pez, or what flavor that would even be. Probably mint or something.
3. I have no idea what that purple stuff coming out of the Game's back is, but he should get it checked out, because that doesn't happen to normal people. If it's not coming from him, it's most likely poisonous gas, which he should be more concerned about than he appears to be.
4. Those silvery foil tears look beautiful, but it would have been even more impressive if they could have somehow animated them using practical effects instead of CGI.
5. Okay, now she's rapping, this is what I came here for.
6. Was she holding the Game's severed yet still functioning head? Or did it just unintentionally look like that? I love how he just looks mildly perturbed by it, rather than horrified or, you know, dead.
7. "No friends in the game..." Is it a coincidence that the Game is in the video, or was he chosen because of this one line?
8. I think she's crushing the Terminator's head in that shot (the Robert Patrick T-1000 model from Judgement Day, obviously).
9. This better be a commercial for the Beats Pill, otherwise there's no excuse for such unambiguous product placement. I doubt that Nicki Minaj's original artistic vision (or whoever directed the video) included a slow-motion shot of the Beats logo.
10. After seeing all of this intricate 3D animation, it's pretty jarring and sort of funny to return to the choppy rabbit animation. I don't really get what the rabbit motif is about, but it's still cool.
11. Is she smoking a mercury cigarette? If there's one way to make cigarettes worse for you, that would be it.
12. Okay I think I finally get it. This video is taking place inside of a lava lamp. Or maybe it's actually a screensaver circa 2003.
13. Now that the song is over, I don't really understand why the Game was there. I doubt he was the prettiest man they could find to just stand around shirtless. Since this is the first time I've heard the song, I kept expecting him to do a verse, but that never happened.
