Video: Netflix (official channel)
The second official trailer for “Animals,” Netflix’s new thriller directed by and starring Ben Affleck, sells the film the way its premise demands: as a campaign ad that keeps curdling into a crime story. Affleck plays a Los Angeles mayoral candidate; Kerry Washington co-stars; and the plot — a ransom demand detonating in the middle of a run for office — gives the trailer its rhythm of podiums, phones and faces trying not to panic in public.
Trailers are arguments, and this one’s argument is tone. There is little of the operatic crime saga in it; instead the footage trades in procedure — the war room, the negotiation, the news cycle spinning up — cut to the tempo of a campaign under siege. It positions the film, which runs 106 minutes and opened in select theatres alongside its Netflix debut, as the kind of adult thriller the studios used to release by the dozen and now route to streaming with a theatrical bow.
The trailer also arrives carrying a second conversation: Affleck has said openly that artificial intelligence was used in the film’s post-production, a candour rare enough among A-list directors to become part of the release’s story. Viewers watching the polished footage above now get to decide whether they can see the seams. That, increasingly, is the game.
The video above is from Netflix’s official channel. Our review coverage of “Animals” — the film, the performances and the AI debate Affleck started around it — is in the Entertainment section.
Credit: Netflix, via its official YouTube channel.
Related reading: Watch: Crew-12 Comes Home — Splashdown Off California · Watch: Every Bucket From Aces–Valkyries Game 2, a Semifinal Classic · Watch: John Lennon's "Power to the People" Gets Its Film Moment Again
