Highs and lows of 2025 Super Bowl ads: Aliens, AI, America and Afflecks

Chicago Tribune

10-02-2025

The Super Bowl, America's debutante ball of capitalism, is the only time of the year we willingly pay attention to ads anymore. The irony is rich: Just as sci-fi once promised, advertising jockeys for your eyeballs from every nook and cranny of daily life in 2025, yet the distraction economy also means that you turn away faster than ever to something else.
But not during a Super Bowl. For three hours or so, Totino's Pizza Rolls could potentially stop you in your tracks. Nestle Coffee might even possibly have you humming jingles again. Think of it that way, and the $7 or $8 million that a Super Bowl spot costs this year — not including the additional $3 or $5 million paid per celebrity cameo — almost seems worth it.
Our good old monoculture lives, however briefly.
That said, what did everyone think of this year's batch of Super ads? It's the only TV that everyone will watch together for the next 12 months — or at least 120 million of us. No movie or TV series will come close. Here's what I saw from my corner of the couch …
Fumbles
AI loves you: Aliens and flying facial hair were trending topics of this year's commercials. But the low-key diva was that sweet, harmless AI scamp. Chat GPT. Google Gemini. Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses. The latter enlisted Chris Pratt and Chris Hemsworth to pretend they don't get contemporary art. Despite wearing Meta glasses? Or because of their Meta glasses? Who knows? Art's dumb! Worse was the Google Gemini ad, which gave us a heartwarming vision of an ordinary father who, well, spends his day discussing employment advice with an AI bot?
Cold comfort: Antonio Banderas selling Bosch refrigerators is innocuous enough. Until they bring in … WWF's Randy 'Macho Man' Savage? Actually, an impersonator. Savage died in 2011. (If anyone can explain what I'm missing about that, feel free to email.)
When Harry Met Sally and Ordered Hellmann's: Am I the only one confused? Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan reunite at Katz's Deli and — ask for mayo? Katz's, an old school New York pastrami-and-corned beef paradise, does indeed serve mayo. Still, it's like an ad for ketchup shot at Weiners Circle.
Wide of the Mark
This is America: Personally, I wish there were more ads for social issues during Super Bowls. That way, you'd get something more interesting than earnest sentiment. Nike's elegant black-and-white spot with Jordan Chiles and Caitlin Clark and a host of women sports stars nailed the contradictory messaging lobbed at women — the kind that says shoot high, just not that high. But an ad from the NFL espousing DEI ('I must be respected, protected, never rejected') during the same game in which they removed 'End Racism' from the stadium's end zones? Or a spot with Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg about really hating the climate of hate, paid for by Robert Kraft's Foundation to Combat Antisemitism — all of whom have been Trump supporters?
If You Know, You Know: Well, someone at website builder Squarespace is fancy. Last year, they hired no less than Martin Scorsese to make their Super Bowl spot (and star in it). This year, it's a handsome, gentle and pretty random ode to the lovely Irish drama 'Banshees of Inisherin,' featuring star Barry Keoghan tossing laptops through pub windows then riding his donkey over a cliff. David Lynch is dead. Long live David Lynch.
Punts
Moldy Oldies: Give it up for Bolingbrook's WeatherTech having the ambition to advertise every year during the Super Bowl. They sell floor mats for cars. Still, when you're that left field, why pair a car full of elderly women with 'Born to Be Wild?' Yawn.
Zero Taste: According to commercial tracking firm iSpot, one-third of Super Bowl ads contained celebrities. Somehow, it felt like more. Michelob Ultra's pickleball spot was about how fun it is to look at Willem Dafoe and Catherine O'Hara play WNBA (Sabrina Ionescu) and NFL stars (Randy Moss) — and that's it. Clever folks given nothing to do.
Awww … kward: A young Clydesdale pushes a keg over mountains and through fields just to return some missing Bud? The Hallmark Christmas Movie of beer commercials.
Unsportsmanlike Conduct
Nightmare Fuel: Granted, if I pounded a few Mountain Dew Baja Blasts and (eventually, someday) fell asleep, I too might eventually imagine myself on a boat running into something as disturbing as the body of a seal graphed to the head of Seal.
Hail Marys
Wilmette Calling: For Yahoo's first Super Bowl ad in two decades, they enlisted Bill Murray, looking expectedly disheveled, to do something unexpected: 'I don't think I need professional help. But a skilled amateur … Maybe? Little help?' Then he shows his email address: [e-mail]. Yes, it's an actual address. The mystery is why. The thing is, to figure it out, you're going to have to use Yahoo for the first time in years.
Making a Better Movie Trailer: If you want to see the new 'Fantastic Four' or 'Jurassic Park' trailer, you'll see it. Which is why it's so refreshing to get a photorealistic Stitch (star of the next unnecessary live-action Disney remake) disrupting a football game. Or Tom Cruise, lightly slipping a 'Mission: Impossible' plug into a rousing pregame montage. Neither delivered footage of an upcoming movie, instead something more compelling: A sensibility distilled.
IP Assemble! As a commercial for a grocery delivery service, Instacart barely left room to explain what it does. As a trailer for a sort of 'Avengers: Mascot Endgame' — with cameos by Cheetos' cheetah, Jolly Green Giant, Mr. Clean, Energizer Bunny and others — it was an impressive feat of cross-corporate intellectual-property lawyering.
Touchdowns
Bean Town: The plot: Preppy snobs get undermined by, cough, working-class Affleck brothers and Dunkin'. Like New England itself (the team and the region), you love this or hate it. As a native, I'm a sucker for Ben's agita and Casey's wariness ('It's beans and water'). Then Jeremy 'serious method actor' Strong emerges from a vat of coffee grinds, bringing a conceptual Huh? to already nonsensical Wha? Guess I just admire the commitment. (There's a six-and-a-half-minute online cut that's crazier and makes even less sense.)
Sketchy Celebs: Ritz had a nice idea and didn't overdo it: Aubrey Plaza and Michael Shannon would pair well together because both are 'salty.' Good call. Both get a sharp one-liner: 'When I smile, people assume it's a glitch.' Plaza laments that she's a human Monday. Bad Bunny shows up for an unnecessary bonus. Slight, speedy and funny.
E.T. Phone 911: Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson of Second City and 'I Think You Should Leave' fit their talent for unsettling laughs into a Totino's ad that plays just like a parody of a Totino's ad. An alien says bye only to get squashed in the doors of his UFO. Children scream. Tim and Sam are sorry for him, but they didn't know him that well, so …
Awww … shucks: What a sweet, short and easygoing message. Roger Federer chats with Elmo, who wonders what the 'Q' and 'C' on Federer's tennis shoes mean. No, Federer says, it's an 'O' and an 'N.' As in On sneakers. Elmo looks doubtful. Me too, Elmo. But what a smart way of subverting the big drawback to a confusing brand name.
Thanks, Elmo. The more you know.