My thoughts on Super Bowl 50, if you’re interested:
Lady Gaga’s rendition of the National Anthem was quite spectacular. Couldn’t tell you about the halftime show as I was busy doing a few things and missed it completely (I could have rewound and watched it but as I don’t care for either Coldplay, Beyonce, or Bruno Mars all that much there seemed little need to).
As for the final score, I was very surprised by it. Going into the game I thought this would be a blowout with the Carolina Panthers winning.
While I knew the Denver Bronco’s defense was damn good (it was rated #1 this year), I felt Peyton Manning’s QB play was so very weak that it would ultimately prove a liability the Broncos could not overcome. The fact is Mr. Manning’s body is broken down and he is, at best, an average to below average QB at this point.
Add to that the fact the Carolina Panthers looked to be an far better rounded team and you’ll understand my reasoning. Carolina’s defense, while obviously not ranked #1, was nonetheless still a damn good unit and in combination with an overall better offense had me feeling this would be an easy win for Carolina.
Boy was I was wrong.
Denver’s defense essentially won the game while Manning, though he committed a few errors (and potentially more…there were times his passes were up there for grabs but Carolina didn’t get them), nonetheless didn’t sink their ship.
After the game, one of the announcers repeated my exact thoughts by noting he never thought a defensive performance alone would be sufficient to win a Super Bowl but that this game proved it could indeed be the case…provided your defense is as good as this one.
In the end, the better team won and in this case it was because of their incredibly good defense.
So much for the game. How about…The commercials?
Ho boy.
What was always a side tradition of watching the Super Bowl was seeing a parade of clever and sometimes outrageous commercials. This year, it was nothing more than a bust.
Of the commercials I could remember:
The Prius commercial. This was the worst. I mean, who thought it was a good idea to present a group of “lovable” bank robbers as protagonists in these commercials? For those who didn’t see the commercial, it starts with the bank robbers’ car being towed and they are forced to steal a car to make their getaway. They find a Prius and take it but, hey, it’s all good: They leave behind a bag of stolen money to pay the owner for the stolen car. The commercial then has them getting away…and away…and away as the Prius is not only fast, but so fuel economical that it keeps the police from capturing them.
Of course in real life the police would blast the living shit out of that Prius and take the bank robbers down hard. Further, other than the people behind the making of the commercial, who in their right mind would look upon bank robbers as being “lovable”?!
The Snickers commercial. Last year Snickers presented one of the all time best versions of their “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry” commercials by having Danny Trejo (Machete) and, at the end of the commercial, Steve Buscemi (Broadwalk Empire, among many others) appear as the “hungry” versions of Marcia and Jan of The Brady Bunch.
This year we had Willem Dafoe playing a cranky Marilyn Monroe as s/he’s filming her famous “white dress being blown up by the subway air” scene from The Seven Year Itch.
On paper the idea of seeing Willem Dafoe in Marilyn’s dress and doing that scene must have felt like a home run but in watching it I couldn’t help but cringe. Didn’t work at all.
The superhero commercials: Unless I’m missing one, I believe there were five in total. The Deadpool one was ok. They’ve done better.
The Captain America: Civil War trailer was…only OK as well, IMHO. I’m curious why they didn’t just call it Avengers 3: Civil War, considering the fact all the main superheroes (plus a few new ones) are there.
The Hulk/Ant-Man Coke commercial…Cute concept but ultimately played out too long. And a part of me was thinking: All that destruction and potential human life lost/injured because of one stinking can of Coke?
The Batman v Superman/Turkish Airways commercial. Though many have dumped on the film before its release, I’ve felt that up to this point the clips/trailers I’ve seen have me optimistic the film will be good. But this whole Turkish Airways cross-promotion has me scratching my head big time. I mean, what’s the point of this commercial? Use Turkish Airlines whenever you want to go to fictional cities like Metropolis and Gotham?! Very weird.
The X-Men Age of Apocalypse trailer…Again, I thought it was only OK. It was so average, in fact, that I forgot entirely about it until I did a search for the superhero ads placed in the Super Bowl. Not a good sign.
Other commercials:
The Bud Light Seth Rogan/Amy Schumer commercial. Too long and not as funny as it could have been. But I did like the Paul Rudd appearance/joke.
The Amazon Echo commercial featuring Dan Marino…I chuckled at that one, especially some of the zingers at the end. The follow up/morning after commercial, though, wasn’t quite as good.
Weirdest commercial by far: The Puppy Monkey Baby commercial for Mountain Dew. How do I even explain it? I can’t so I’ll conclude this blog entry by showing it. Gaze in wild wonder at one of the most bizarre commercials I’ve seen in quite some time…