Rating: 1.5/5 stars

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest sporting events in the U.S. Even if you are not into seeing who wins the Lombardi trophy, there is something for everyone with the commercials and the big halftime show. 

This year had a decent amount of interesting commercials with many celebrities making special appearances. Many trailers also were shown to get fans ready for the highly anticipated movies of 2024. 

Trailers seemed to be the highlight of the commercial breaks this year with two major first looks happening right at the beginning of the Super Bowl. 

First, the “Deadpool and Wolverine” trailer aired, getting fans hyped for Deadpool’s introduction to the MCU. The trailer had many nods to Deadpool joining Disney and even a nod to the MCU with Captain America and Hulk being shown on the screen. Also, the Time Variance Authority was in the trailer, which is a big part of this new phase in the Marvel Universe. 

The musical theater fans all were anticipating the release of the “Wicked” trailer starring Cynthia Erivo (“Drift”) as Elphaba and Ariana Grande (“yes, and?”) as Glinda. This production has been anticipated for a few years, and the trailer did not disappoint. The cinematography was beautiful. Grande looked stunning with her blonde hair and Erivo’s voice was one in a million. Fans cannot wait for “Wicked” to hit theaters on Thanksgiving. 

The commercials this year had a lot of funny cameos from big celebrities like Tom Brady, Addison Rae, Ice Spice, the Kardashians, Pete Davidson, Aubrey Plaza, Beyoncé and more.

A few commercials have been teasing their ads by having trailers like Apartments.com’s commercial about aliens and State Farm’s big commercial that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger (“Fubar”)  and Danny Devito (“Haunted Mansion”). CeraVe’s commercial also had this foreshadowing with Michael Cera (“Barbie”) by getting paparazzi-like photos released with Cera carrying a lot of their product. The commercial was really funny and great with Cera’s dry humor with a little weird quirk to it. Hype for commercials tunes people into the Super Bowl more if they are not already fans of football. 

Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3”) transformed into the “Pringles Guy” in the Pringles commercial, and Ben Affleck (“Hypnotic”) wanted to prove his worth to be with JLo in his funny Dunkin ad. His placement in the Dunkin ad was great because Affleck is known to always be carrying some form of Dunkin product. 

e.l.f.’s commercial was iconic. They had a courtroom and had Judge Judy judging a man from the TV show “Suits” (2011) for using their products vs more expensive brands. Meghan Trainor (“Takin’ It Back”) made a cameo as well as Ronald Gladden who starred in the sitcom “Jury Duty” (2023). 

Kanye West (“Vultures I”) also had his slot for Yeezy which was just him filming him on his phone in what appeared to be the back of his car. This type of commercial is a pretty Kanye thing to do so people were not surprised by this. 

Beyoncé (“Renaissance”) stole the show with her big Verizon commercial that shows her competing to beat Verizon’s breaking records. This was big for the fact that for one, it is Beyoncé, but also she announced “Act II” of “Renaissance” which many fans could not wait for. 

Overall, the commercials, ads and trailers were pretty good with some fun celebrity cameos as well as some emotional ones that pulled at heartstrings. Although the game was not that great, you can count on the Super Bowl commercials to be entertaining. 

Image from Robert Couse-Baker via Wikimedia Commons