14 DAY TRIAL // When you take a look at the impressive roster of X-Men, you realize that they all may be different but they stand for the same ideals which are good and pure. Using their image to promote menial products like, say, burgers sort of ticks fans off and makes them feel used.
A series of commercials promoting a new burger for Carl's Jr. and Hardee's is making its rounds on the internet, but the effect isn't exactly the one that the companies had in mind. For many it's quite disturbing to watch Quicksilver, Colossus or Mystique pose in front of the camera while holding a burger and praising how good it is.
The campaign includes three videos so far, one with Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters, one with Colossus, played by Daniel Cudmore and one with Mystique, but they didn't make Jennifer Lawrence do the commercial so they just dressed some other girl in the blue suit and made her eat a burger.
The Quicksilver commercial shows the actor in character as he gulps down using his super speed on an X-Tra Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit and a set of PA's orange juice all before a piece of bacon that fell out of the sandwich when he took the first bite hits the floor.
Several fans, including some media outlets have expressed their distaste for this commercial, claiming that it basically ruined this character for viewers in the movie. One such source pointed out that the first time the audience is going to see Quicksilver on screen, they are going to associate his image with the sandwich.
The ad with Mystique is probably less controversial, simply because her character has been featured in previous X-Men movies before. At least they didn't make Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence munch down on a burger on screen. Instead they used some random actress who immediately transforms into a man to eat the Western X-Tra Bacon Thickburger, as the line “Man up for 2X the bacon” can be read on the screen.
Daniel Cudmore reprises his role of Colossus for the ads that have the tagline “Colossal amounts of bacon.” He can be seen gulping down a burger before turning into his steel self and smashing through a number of walls as he says “Back to work.”
This isn't the first time Carl's Jr. is blasted for making embarrassing commercials, but this time it's even worse because of their use of a popular franchise and its characters. One outraged columnist wonders “But how do you use a dystopian time travel story — one of the darkest in ‘X-Men’ history — to sell burgers in the first place?”
