Thirty Seconds to Sell —Grading every Super Bowl movie trailer

The Super Bowl is often a launching pad for trailers for some of the biggest movies of the year — here's what we thought

The NFL has produced some high-quality drama, and a few high-quality movies, over the 100 years of its existence. The league's championship game, the Super Bowl, has warped into something that represents not just the greatest team in the league, but also the current cultural climate. Ads featuring appearances from Post Malone, Maisie Williams, and countless other celebrities were aired throughout the game. We also got our fair share of promotion for programming on Fox, the game's broadcasting home for this year, and a few political ads that highlighted the tumult leading up to the 2020 election. 

Most importantly, though, fans were able to tune in and catch a glimpse of a few upcoming blockbusters headed to movie theaters in the coming months. Super Bowl ads were going for a rate of about $5 million for a 30-second ad, so it's fair to wonder if these studios spent their money wisely. Which trailers were a great tool in building hype for their respective films, and which left us with more lingering questions? Let's run them all down and give out some grades! 

Fast 9

Grade: A

In order to justify this grade, I'm going to rope in the “event” that the Fast Franchise set up for the trailer premiere as part of this promotion. The studio booked an entire freaking concert, and an hour-long live stream to boot, just to show an over-bloated 4-minute trailer. Then, they show a few more scenes in the Super Bowl ad, as if what the world really needs is Vin Diesel grumbling about family even more. This franchise is now on its tenth film (for reference, there were only 3 Godfather movies), and if they're going to drive this thing into the ground, they need to pull off publicity stunts as big as the stunts performed by the stunt drivers–er, CGI– in the cars on screen. They did just that and earned the highest grade here.

Black Widow

Grade: C-

Black Widow's solo movie is coming out in May. That's about all the trailer that aired Sunday wanted to reveal, but at this point, we need a little more to justify this entry into the MCU. The trailer starts off with Scarlett Johansson's titular character saying “You don't know everything about me.” I get that the line is supposed to add intrigue to the film's plot, but when a character who's played a pivotal role in nearly half of the 22 films in a franchise, the idea that we still don't know everything there is to know about the character seems a little over-dramatic. I'm sure there will be some sort of Easter egg that will give us a peek into what the next phase of Marvel's ever-evolving series will be like, I'm still left wondering why this movie is being made, and I was hoping that a trailer would fix that. 

Mulan

Mulan: A+ 

If there's a perfect way to do this, Mulan had it on Sunday. The Super Bowl trailer clued a great deal of people into what a live-action Mulan film is going to look like, and why it's going to work. The ad was also used in conjuction with the film's final trailer being released, which allowed fans who were hyped on the mini-clip to see a fully fleshed-out sizzle reel of what's coming. With such craft and care is taken in the promotion of the film, I'm starting to hold the belief that Mulan has a chance to be the very best of this series of Disney remakes. 

Spongebob: Sponge On the Run

Grade: B+

I mean, why not at this point, right? Despite the promise of a Keanu Reeves cameo, I have little to no interest in seeing this movie, and I'm decades older than its target demographic. But seeing it allowed my friends and I to reminisce on all the great Spongebob episodes, while the children who were watching got to beg their parents to go see the movie this summer. If a trailer is a win for the kids and the kids at heart, it's a winner in my book. 

Sonic the Hedgehog

Grade: C

I wanted to give this trailer my only failing grade for this exercise, but seeing Jim Carrey going full-tilt for his portrayal of Doctor Robotnik is probably going to be enough to see this movie. Sadly, the trailer spends most of its time on a joke set up by other “fast” athletes (like NFL stars Michael Thomas and Christian McCaffrey), but once the joke predictably falls flat, there's about 10 seconds of movie footage to digest afterwards. Thankfully, Carrey's final scene was somewhat interesting enough to make this somewhat memorable. 

007: No Time to Die

Grade: B-

We got pretty much the shortened version of the trailer here, save for a fun scene showing off the rivalry between Daniel Craig's James Bond and Lashanna Lynch's yet-to-be-named 00-agent, and a random line from Rami Malek's scar-faced villain. A lot of the scenes were ripped right from the film's first trailer, with a few quick cuts of the actors who appear to be major players in the film, but there's not much to discuss that hasn't been already. We're moving on.

Top Gun: Maverick

Grade: B-

I have no idea why this movie was made, or what it's going to be about. I know that Tom Cruise is reprising his role as a rogue pilot, but beyond that, I can't tell what this film is dealing with, besides cool plane stuff. At least we got a good chunk of that here. 

A Quiet Place, Part II

Grade: A-

A Quiet Place was such a great movie, wasn't it? While most blockbusters are focused on big loud explosions, this film thrived in silence and created such an affecting narrative. The sequel from Director John Krasinski is due out now, and so far, both trailers have shown both Krasinski's and Emily Blunt's characters, and how they experienced contact with the monsters on the first day of the invasion. This time, we saw things from Krasinki's side, and his appearance in this movie is a welcomed surprise. It appears that from everything we've seen from this film so far that we'll be getting a healthy dose of backstory as to how this world came to be, which creates a great sense of intrigue for this film. 

The Invisible Man

Grade: C+

I mean, whatever, you know? There's a new Invisible Man movie, it looks spooky, Elisabeth Moss looks like she's acting her ass off in it, there's not much left to do to sell me. We get a slight glimpse into the relationship that goes awry, kick-starting the plot of the film, at the beginning of the trailer, which ends up being the only new footage we see here.

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The Super Bowl ads seemed to be a little below-par this year, which I think highlights an underlying theme that there's just not that many blockbusters that are going to have the billion-dollar box office impact that so many films did last year. If I had to bet money on it, I'd imagine that Minions would be my pick to lead 2020 in total gross at the box office, and I won't comment on that any further. But in this state of uncertainty, it offered an opportunity for thoughtful horror films like A Quiet Place – Part II and The Invisible Man to step into the spotlight, a nice alternative from ther superhero-dominated Super Bowl we had last year.

Donald Wagenblast isn't fooling anyone; he'll be seeing all of the movies mentioned above the week they come out in theaters, regardless of how effective their trailers were. He can be reached on Twitter @whysoserious.