Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (opens in new tab) is still a few weeks away from launch, but that hasn’t stopped Activision from rolling out the official launch trailer today. The new video is a rough-and-tumble tale of manly men and unflinching women, complete with an appearance by that guy who plays a competent-but-irritated military officer in practically every movie he appears in.
That’s Glen Morshower (opens in new tab), by the way—the guy who wants to know “how many they have and where they intend to use them”—and if you think I’m kidding about his oeuvre, here’s a look at some of his work:
- General Hayes in Madam Secretary
- General Morshower in Transformers: The Last Knight
- General Lane in Supergirl
- General Jacobs in Agents of SHIELD
- Major General Holtz in The Men Who Stare at Goats
- General Cook in Fire From Below
- General Washington in Disaster!
- Admiral Hawley in Scandal
- Admiral Halsey in Pearl Harbor
- unnamed generals in The 4400 and Delta Farce
That’s not to mention performances of various lower-ranked officers in other films and TV shows, and roles in games including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield 3, Black Ops 2, and even Wolfenstein 2—although he didn’t play a military officer in that one, but BJ Blazkowicz’s abusive father. Which is pretty close, really.
The man clearly has a type, is my point, and he’s filling it out nicely in this trailer just as he did in 2009 in the original Modern Warfare, with an impatient demand for answers that can only be provided by cool customers with sweet hardware who are willing to do what the rest of us are not.Â
What is that, exactly? I really don’t know. I’ve enjoyed the previous Modern Warfare singleplayer campaigns and I’m looking forward to Modern Warfare 2, but I’m never entirely sure what went on when they’re over. Quite frankly, they turn into a blurry haze of gunfire and explosions 30 minutes after the credits roll. Which is fine: Like a good action movie, Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t need to stimulate heavy intellectual discourse in order to entertain. Sometimes, bullets, ‘splosions, and machismo are all you really need—and when Captain Price said, “‘These things’ take violence and timing. I can do both,” that’s when I was sold.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has a bit of a complicated launch schedule (opens in new tab), but it really comes down to a couple of specific days: Those who preorder will have access to the campaign on October 20, while the full release will take place a week later on October 28. It’ll be available for PC on Steam (opens in new tab) and Battle.net (opens in new tab).
