Superbowl XL: Break 3

V for Vendetta | Warner Bros. Pictures

Summary: A ranting, easily identified evil dictator screams and yells at the audience. Things blow up. The creators of The Matrix are mentioned, as is their "vision." More things blow up. Natalie Portman appears as Sinead O'Connor. More things explode. A man in a clown mask opines that "People shouldn't be afraid of their governments" at the same moment that imposing government troops raise automatic weapons on a crowd of civilians. He continues, "Governments should be afraid of their people." More things blow up.

High Point: Stuff Blows Up!

Low Point: Subverts the comic book's brilliant subtext that a quiet, bureaucratic, subtly authoritarian government could seize control by spreading hatred of unliked groups such as the poor and homosexuals, replacing it with a cartoonish, easily identified dictatorship run by a ranting Hitler-esque looney.

Will this commercial soothe the minds of scandal-weary Americans? Well, probably...but mostly because it will assure America that a neoconservative cabal who seizes power via judicial coup and continues their reign by rigging electronic voting machines is not a dictatorship...all because we have a smiling goofus instead of a ranting lunatic in the leadership position.

"Brown & Bubbly" | Diet Pepsi

Summary: Jay Mohr is Diet Pepsi's agent and Diddy desperately wants to "cut a track" with Diet Pepsi. Mohr finally relents when Diddy agrees to "mutual creative control." Diet Pepsi pops its top with a sickly fizzing noise and, with oversized headphones on its cylindrical aluminum head, sits silently while people who appear to be actual rap and R&B artists create the Hott New Track around it.

High Point: The lyrics of the song: "You know I'm waiting / so come and get you / some brown and bubbly."

Low Point: The stuff you start imagining the longer the phrase "Brown and Bubbly" goes through your head.

Will this commercial soothe the minds of scandal-weary Americans? If horrible cauldrons of stinky "Brown and Bubby" substances can "soothe" anything...

"Thanks for the Memories, Troy Polamalu" | The NF-frickin'-L

Summary: Pittsburgh Steelers defensive back Troy Polamalu reminisces about childhood dreams of playing in the Super Bowl. Promo filmed like any one of the hundred twenty Oscar-nominated documentaries about Rosa Parks.

High Point: Troy's dreds.

Low Point: Troy hanging the Vince Lombardi trophy down by his ass.

Will this commercial soothe the minds of scandal-weary Americans? No. Reminds of us the deaths of Ms. Parks and Coretta Scott King. Also, if football fans see a football in a commercial, they expect it to be thrown through his wife's tire.

[NEXT BREAK]

Team Gamma