Andy Flemming’s fevered and hallucinatory Super Bowl review
One of the significant problems with writing a Super Bowl review is having to watch the game first, and as I have absolutely no intention of doing this, a suitable narrative device will have to be deployed to allow me to review things twenty-four hours before I’ve actually seen them.
As luck would have it, on Saturday night I accidentally wore three Nicorette patches after consuming blue cheese and mushrooms that turned out to be violently hallucinatory. The subsequent thrashing nightmare turned out to be (and I believe this) a fairly accurate representation of Monday’s Super Bowl spectacular. I shall therefore be reviewing this version as opposed to the one everyone else in the advertising community worldwide will be excitedly reviewing on Monday afternoon.
Apple’s big film this year is based on the Vision Pro, the headset so profound that men across the country have taken to wearing them on subways, driving their cars and even walking down the street while swiping the air with their fingers. The film is narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, who famously brought to life ‘Here’s to The Crazy Ones’ sixteen years ago. This one, entitled ‘Here’s to those Crazy Women’ is in a similar tone. With beautiful portraits of amazing and transformative women like Marilyn Monroe, Amal Clooney, Michelle Obama, Greta Thunberg and Zendaya, the beautifully crafted copy is a love (and goodbye) letter to women. Because as the ad explains kindly towards the end, if you own a Vision Pro, you’ll never, ever, ever meet another one.
In a truly disturbing piece of film, Christian Bale plays an astronaut drifting away from the ISS with his oxygen rapidly depleting. After he slowly and realistically chokes to death after two harrowing minutes, a stunningly designed bottle floats into view with the line ‘NightmAir, by Liquid Death.’ This would be the much anticipated launch of a their range of flavoured air. After all, they made five billion by selling what comes out of our taps for free, so why the fuck not?
The battery war between Duracell and Energiser has seen some of its biggest skirmishes take place during the Super Bowl and this year is no exception. In the latest salvo, ‘Mr Energiser’, the battery with legs who leaps around like he’s just snorted a line of Meth is given a far more subdued and emotive personality. In a Pixar-produced spectacular, we see him come to life in a child’s bedroom at midnight and meet up with a female battery. Like the opening scenes of ‘Up,’ we see their relationship blossom before the female battery collapses and slowly dies in Mr Energiser’s arms. We pull back as he screams ‘No, Jesus Christ No, WHY?’ then the line fades up ‘Outlasts every other battery.’ Your move Duracell.
We’re apparently no more than three minutes away from a convenience store say Skittles in their huge three minute film. Javier Bardem reprises the terrifying ‘Anton Chigurh’ from ‘No Country for Old Men’. The bowl cut psychopath quietly tells you to immediately leave the house and buy a large pack before slowly running his fingernails down a blackboard until you do. ‘You can’t escape death’ he chuckles as you realise that they’ve bought every break on every channel. It’s quite a departure from ‘Taste the Rainbow’ but it’ll probably sell a lot of Skittles.
The trailer to ‘Bigly’ the long-awaited Trump biopic is next up. Shot by Mel Gibson, the film is set to launch just before the November election. Described as ‘an accurate retelling of the former President’s early life,’ the trailer features Trump’s highly-decorated Vietnam experience, his creation and launch of the Apple iPhone and ends with his crucifixion and ultimate resurrection. The film launches November 2.
Tourism Australia have a history of advertising that’s often years ahead of its time. ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ was soon followed by the equally memorable ‘For God’s sake, it’s just fourteen fucking hours.’ This year, the tourism giant has overcome one of the biggest hurdles to Americans travelling abroad by purchasing a passport for the 60% who don’t own one. To celebrate this, we see a fast cut of the Sydney Harbour, islands, food, wine and a kangaroo before finishing up with the line ‘Now there’s NO fucking excuse.’
Finally, there’s that amusing one with the cast of Game of Thrones interrupting a birthday party and everything goes hilariously wrong. It’s for Uber Eats or something. Maybe Toyota. Anyway. I can’t remember. There were loads of ads.
Andy Flemming is, apparently, still amusingly describing himself as ‘Oberleutnant Wordy McWordSpurt’ at 72andSunny who, amazingly, have about eleven ads in today’s game. The best ones, obvs.