Maroon 5 ft. Wiz Khalifa “Payphone” Video, Reviewed

This music video for Maroon 5’s latest single, “Payphone” which features Wiz Khalifa, has produced the same response from me as the song itself: meh. It’s not extraordinary, but it’s not terrible. Mostly it just doesn’t really make sense.The video is a plot based one, and the flashy police chases and explosions seem like they’re meant to distract you from the fact that the video has very little to do with the actual song.

The song itself is your typical “we broke up and I miss her” song. It kind of has the overall message of people change and I guess we changed because you dumped me but I wish we could go back to the way things were.

I don’t know, I’m really just paraphrasing this because it’s a trite and cliché theme for a song. Anyway, the video is about a guy (Maroon 5 front-man Adam Levine) working at a bank who appears to be bored with his job, or preoccupied by a problem in his personal life – presumably the latter. The bank is then robbed and the guy helps the pretty girl escape.

Here’s where shit gets confusing. Adam Levine and the pretty girl run out of the bank and the police stationed outside start firing at them. There is then a huge chase and at some point, Adam helps the girl escape by stealing a car and distracting the police. This turns in to a high speed chase with many action-movie-esque moments. It’s a tad ridiculous.

Anyway, the video has to end as it began – with a shot showing Adam Levine all dirtied upstanding in at a payphone with a fire raging behind him – so our hero evades the police and parks under a highway overpass and then he gets out of his car and it blows up. Oh right, and somewhere in there Wiz Khalifa “raps” about some shit.

Okay, really though? What the fuck gives? This video has nothing to do with the song! It’s not even a good story! It makes no sense and it’s just flashy and dramatic for the sake of flashiness and drama. Honestly, Maroon 5, you can do better than that.