Somebody noted elsewhere that it’s two days after the Superbowl and we haven’t done our annual roundup of Game Day commercials.
Perhaps because they mostly sucked.
But I am here to get the discussion started! Here’s a handy list:
The Wayne’s World one is creepy.
Doritos one was also creepy, as was the M&Ms one.
I did like the Amazon Alexa spot with Michael B. Jordan. Probably the only commercial I can point to and say “that was worthy of the money they spent.”
As a huge Springsteen fan, you’d think I would have liked the Jeep spot, but not only did I not appreciate the message (reconciliation without accountability), I was just deeply saddened to see Bruce sell out after steadfastly refusing to do so for decades.
The Tracey Morgan spots for Rocket Mortgage were pretty funny.
Flat Matthew McConaughey was nightmarish and made me want to stay away from Doritos.
I started the night with good feelings about Queen Latifah, but by the end of the game I was of the opinion that they should cancel her show because it felt like it had been on the air for years.
The Toyota spot with the Paraolympian was pretty good, I thought.
The GM ad with Will Farrel with a grievance against Scandinavia was chuckle-worthy.
We actually watched it. It felt like a stale old police procedural that’s been around for years, just hanging on because the budget is low enough to justify the slot placeholder ratings. Awful.
The entire genre is just tedious at this point, at best.
Also the way the risks are portrayed, as well as the behavior of cops, is prone to problematic portrayals. I just can’t watch these at all.
The only reason I watched it was curiosity. Queen Latifah as The Equalizer? How does that work? The answer is not well.
You realize it’s a remake of a series from the late 80’s, right? Replace Queen Latifah with an older white guy, and it’s the same show more/less.
I didn’t watch it, but only because I was already asleep. I liked the premise back in the day.
Yes, I watched the old show when it was on TV. I really didn’t feel this was equal (har har) to that. The old show was really more of a heist caper with a light smattering of social commentary as McCall used his contacts and ingenuity to outwit the bad guys. The gist was always in how McCall and his rotating member team of specialists and regular Joes would be able to trip people up and maneuver them into screwing themselves over and leaving their victims alone. It was all dirty street level. McCall and his people didn’t meet in an office because what they did was technically illegal. Other than his sweet car and his wardrobe, McCall’s life was a mess. They met on park benches, in dark alleys, and seedy bars. The new Queen Latifah version felt more like Bones or FBI, but with a light smattering of network TV safe John Wick. They even had the tech person room with the big multi-screen of tech garbage scrolling eternally on it for the exposition scene.
I’m not saying 80’s Equalizer was golden TV, but this was low-rent dookie.
I liked this commercial featuring people being pelted with sky lemons.
I can’t believe they got the “things are getting too wet in here” line approved for air.
I loved the GM EV commercial.
I refuse to watch this crap.
The whole premise behind The Equalizer is what happens if James Bond retires to your neighborhood and tries to help people?
I’ll pass on the “re-imaging”.
To get on topic, the lemons were okay.
Overall, it’s in the same genre, to me, as The Fugitive, or Early Edition, or many other shows where every week we see a new person or people in bad situations that need help, and the retired James Bond helps them out (or the Fugitive helps them out, or the guy who gets tomorrow’s newspaper today helps them out, etc.).
What Denzel’s Equalizer did right is that you need to care about the people that he (or she) is helping out each week. If you care about the people who are in trouble each week, you enjoy the Equalizer (or the Fugitive, etc) getting them out of their predicament.
I haven’t watched the new version yet.
(I am slowly re-watching the original Edward Woodward series though. I only watch an episode every few months, but the show mostly holds up because most weeks I care about the person in trouble).
That was the worst set of Super Bowl ads in the history of the idea. Just dreadful end to end. And often creepy (I’m looking at you, McConwhatever you spell your name).
I liked Edgar Scissorhands with Winona Ryder(!) and Tim Chalamet for nostalgia’s sake. The original film was 30 years ago, egads.
Nobody here mentioning whatever the godawful thing with the CEO “singing” with his keyboard? That and the Doritos ad made me actively want to not buy any of their products.
Chuckled at the GM EV spot.
The series of Paramount ads were among the worst. I can’t imagine what ad exec sold them on that.
Oh, yeah. That’s a good one I hadn’t seen yet. Thanks for posting.
Samual Adams made me chuckle.
Also, even though I’m not a big Travolta fan, I kinda dug seeing him and his daughter in this one:
An honorable mention for the Huggies babies, which was adorable
Thanks again for making this thread @Tin_Wisdom! It inspired me to watch a few more.
Seemed to me there were a lot more celebrities in the ads this year than in years past.