Ranking The Super Bowl Movie Trailers
In all honesty, none of the movie trailers aired during Super Bowl XLVIII were awful, which is not something that could be said for year’s past. When a studio lays down $4 million for a 30-second spot, they obviously want to advertise what they believe to be their best films of the upcoming year. Even though we wouldn’t classify any of the trailers as losers, here’s our ranking of Super Bowl movie trailers from top to bottom (keep in mind that we are Comicbook.com so we might be just a little bias toward comic book movies).
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – We’re judging Captain America on the full theatrical trailer that was released. The 30 second Super Bowl spot was just enough to whet viewers appetite, and the real payoff was the extended look online. Not only does Captain America: The Winter Soldier look like a great action movie, it looks like a great movie period. The trailer made it clear that there is going to an engaging story and quality acting to go along with all the explosions and superheroics.
Transformers: Age of Extinction – If we were judging every trailer purely on the 30-second spot that aired during the Super Bowl, then Transformers: Age of Extinction would have come out on top. 30 seconds isn’t long enough to tell a story, but it is long enough to wow viewers with spectacular special effects, and the short trailer was filled with non-stop action. While many will criticize Michael Bay just because he’s Michael Bay, his fourth Transformers film actually looks like it is going to be by far his best one yet.
Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Again, this one we’re judging based on the full trailer and the sizzle reel that was released online. Judging from all the footage shown, Sony Pictures has definitely upped their game for the Amazing Spider-Man sequel. The trailer was filled with intense action sequences, and the more we see of Jamie Foxx as Electro the more confident we are that he’s going to prove to be a formidable villain for Spider-Man.
Muppets Most Wanted – It looks like Disney has put together another fun Muppets movie, and their advertising campaign for the film has been highly entertaining. The use of random tweets to promote the movie was hilarious.
The Monuments Men – It’s probably a crime to rank this trailer so low. With George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, and John Goodman, The Monuments Men is going to be a great film. However, the trailer didn’t really show us anything that we hadn’t seen before, and it played more like a showcase for the stars in the film rather than an actual trailer.
Noah – Russell Crowe gave a solid performance in Man of Steel, and Noah looks like it will have another winning performance from him. The trailer also showcased some great special effects with the animals entering the ark and the flood waters crashing down.
RoboCop – With RoboCop’s release date quickly approaching, we’ve already seen several trailers and promos for the film. While the RoboCop Super Bowl trailer was a solid action trailer, it didn’t offer us anything new to make us rank it higher on the list.
3 Days to Kill – Kevin Costner seems to be having a career resurgence, likely helped by his outstanding performance in Man of Steel. While 3 Days to Kill might have been light on the action sequences, it showed plenty of Costner’s charm, which is what is going to attract viewers to this film.
Pompeii – Some of the visuals in the film were impressive, but a lot of the scenes came across as just the typical scenes that you would see in any gladiator movie or TV show. We would have liked to seen some more focus on what makes this film different.
Draft Day – Just like with 3 Days to Kill, the entire appeal of this movie rides on Kevin Costner. It was a good fit to advertise the film during the Super Bowl, but a sports movie revolving around the draft just seems like a somewhat boring concept. Maybe, the film itself will be great, and the trailer wasn’t bad, but it just didn’t grab us as especially exciting.
Need For Speed – Again, there really were no bad trailers in this year’s Super Bowl, but we have to rank someone last. Anytime that a studio makes a car racing movie then they are going to face comparisons to the Fast & Furious franchise, and Need For Speed doesn’t quite measure up to what we saw from Fast & Furious 6 in last year’s Super Bowl.