Super Bowl 2016: Commercials, halftime show, science, football, and other stuff

Is there anything — apart from your dance moves — that you wouldn’t like to know Beyoncé‘s opinion on?

Well, just one day after the debut of “Formation,” and the reveal of her opinions on hot sauce, Red Lobster, and Illuminati theories, Beyoncé decided to grace us with her opinion on a somewhat more abstract concept — the sharing economy!

When you’re busy firing off jokes with your friends on Super Bowl Sunday and pretending to be unfamiliar with Coldplay’s discography, it’s easy to forget that an appearance at the Big Game® — whether it’s a halftime set, an anthem performance, or even a big commercial — is close to the pinnacle of anyone’s career. It’s one of the world’s biggest stages, and its audience is full of people who don’t typically pay close attention to music and culture. When else do musicians have a chance to play for people who don’t know Bruno Mars from a Bronco?

Beyoncé was last night’s headliner in everything but name, but plenty of other performers managed to squeeze their way into the conversation surrounding the game. For some, that meant shredding on guitar in a room full of lit candles; for others, it meant shilling for various global corporations and being compensated accordingly. Who made the most of their Super Bowl 50 screentime?

Super Bowl 50 disappointed most of us not high on the Rocky Mountains. However, the event did excel in its secondary function as a royal rumble between the world’s largest brands and commercial factories.

This years ads felt fresh compared to the crops of years past. The “dead child” count was kept to a zero, and the obligatory drunk driving commercial was fine — actually, it was good!

Tim Cook, who runs one of the world’s most important companies and does not need this crap from any of you, is getting roasted after posting a wild, out-of-focus shot on Twitter tonight at the end of Super Bowl 50. Presumably shot with an iPhone, the photo shows what appears to be the aftermath of Super Bowl 50, in which people on the field are being showered with confetti, or maybe nerve gas. It’s not totally clear.

”Shot with iPhone,” quote-tweeted a bunch of jackals, after Cook shared his blurry photo from the 20-yard line of Levi’s Stadium. The Apple CEO and football fan had tweeted in praise of the Denver Broncos, and now he’s going to pay for it, because that’s how Twitter works.

Tonight’s Super Bowl 50 halftime show featured a performance by Coldplay, Bruno Mars, and Beyoncé. The roughly 12-minute set was true to everything the mid-game break has come to exemplify; it was spectacle, it was frenzied, and considering how many pieces were involved, it mostly went off without a hitch. Just as Super Bowl 50 came to a close, Beyoncé gave fans one more bonus; behind-the-scenes photos from the show’s dress rehearsal. Everyone’s in costume, and there’s even some pyro — but you won’t see any people in the stands. It’s a really striking visual. Immediately following her performance, Beyoncé announced the Formation World Tour. Tickets go on sale February 16th.

The first X-Men: Apocalypse trailer served to introduce the titular new baddie (played by Oscar Isaac). In contrast, the Super Bowl spot is way more focused on teasing the summer blockbuster’s big action moments: a bevy of surface-to-air missiles launching from a field. A city being destroyed by unclear forces. Olivia Munn (as Psylocke) cutting a car in half. And in the tradition of environmental destruction films, the soundtrack is an old Coldplay song (“Don’t Panic”) slowed down and sung by Clairity.

X-Men: Apocalypse will hit theaters May 27th.

The new Toyota Prius is a pretty good new car. But is it good enough to make a getaway car for four inept bank robbers who parked their original getaway ride in a tow zone? That’s what Toyota would like you to believe anyway.

In this ad, which aired during Super Bowl 50, four bank robbers — three of whom are played by Chris Bauer, Pablo Schreiber, and James Ransone, three members of the Sobotka family from The Wire — struggle to find a getaway vehicle, considering an Uber before deciding to steal a new Toyota Prius (and leaving a bag of cash for the owner). The police give chase, with the cops and perps poking fun at common perceptions of the car, mentioning farmer’s markets and how it shouldn’t really be hard for the cops to chase down baddies in a Prius.

Beyoncé just pulled off a Super Bowl hat trick. In addition to releasing a new single and performing during the Half Time Show, Bey just announced that her Formation World Tour will launch on April 27th.

News about the tour leaked earlier this afternoon, leaving fans waiting with bated breath for the announcement:

It’s only fitting that the most American event — the Super Bowl — featured a trailer for the most American movie. Viewers of the big game today got a 45-second look at the upcoming Independence Day: Resurgence, the sequel to the 1996 alien invasion movie that blew up the White House, let Will Smith punch his first alien, and generated the most stirring speech ever committed to film.

While the original film was hardly short on pyrotechnics, Resurgence looks like it’ll blow up even more of the planet, as the aliens bring bigger guns and greater numbers back to Earth to finish their aborted invasion. Whole skyscrapers are ripped out of their foundations in today’s trailer, pulled into a darkened sky by huge alien spaceships, before being dropped back to Earth. Will Smith’s not in the picture any more, but expect a lot more fancy flying from his son, all grown up and now a fighter pilot himself. The movie’s landing in theaters on June 24th.

Even though Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk will be notably absent in Captain America: Civil War (which just got a brand new 30-second spot), that doesn’t mean he can’t have a run-in or two with his fellow Avengers this year. In Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl spot, master thief Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man) manages to steal a Coke Mini from right under the nose of Dr. Bruce Banner. Obviously, that makes the big guy a little angry, resulting in a chase across an unnamed city. Don’t worry, though. They make up in the end.

It’s been nearly 10 years since Matt Damon last showed up on screen as amnesiac superspy Jason Bourne — and in that time, it seems, Damon has been working out quite a bit. The first trailer for the fifth Bourne movie, simply titled Jason Bourne, debuted just after the first quarter of Super Bowl 50 and marks the return of both Damon and director Paul Greengrass to the series. In the trailer, we get a bulked-up Damon, lots of smashed cars, and ominous spy-thriller quotes like “why would he come back now?” “I remember everything” and “so what’s your usual gym routine like, Matt?”

Jason Bourne will hit theaters July 29th.

The first full trailer for Disney’s live-action (and heavy CGI) remake of the 1967 cartoon classic The Jungle Book was released during the Super Bowl tonight. The trailer introduces Bill Murray as Baloo the bear, Christopher Walken as King Louie the orangutan, and Ben Kingsley as the friendly panther Bagheera.

“The Bare Necessities” — the unforgettable earworm about chilling out and eating prickly pears — soundtracked the trailer, sung by Murray. A previous teaser trailer sampled a weirdly seductive version of “Trust in Me,” sung by Scarlett Johansson as Kaa the python.

Despite our being just minutes into tonight’s big game, Apple TV’s CBS Sport app is enduring streaming issues preventing fans from seeing the game online.

CBS has confirmed it knows about the issue, and insists it’s working on a fix:

Marvel kicked off what’s sure to be a long night of new film trailers during Super Bowl 50. The new Captain America: Civil War spot is the film’s most intense ad yet (case in point: Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark “blocking” a point-blank gun shot) with a chorus chanting “united we stand” and “divided we fall” throughout the 30-second spot. We also get a better glimpse of both “sides” of the fight (but still no sign of Spider-Man).

Captain America: Civil War will hit theaters May 6th.

This column is part of a series where Verge staffers post highly subjective reviews of animals. Up until now, we’ve written about animals without telling you whether they suck or rule. We are now rectifying this oversight. Today’s review is an adversarial format in honor of big game.

Dear TC, or as you prefer to be called in the forums: “Horsecomber1985,”

Where does the superb owl live? Surrounded by the bones of its vanquished enemies. What does the superb owl eat? Moths, grasshoppers, and candied yams.

(Wikimedia commons)

This Sunday, the Carolina Panthers will face the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 50. A showdown of young quarterback Cam Newton and likely-to-retire legendary quarterback Peyton Manning, this is one of the most anticipated Super Bowls in recent memory. For that reason, you should catch yourself up on the history of the championship and these two teams before the big game.

This 3-minute video includes valuable game-time talking points, Super Bowl trivia, and even the basic rules of the game. And it’s short enough that you can focus on the important pre-game prep: ordering pizza and frying hot wings.

There’s no such thing as a concussion-proof football helmet — most experts agree on that. But today’s helmets aren’t doing as much as they could to help football’s concussion epidemic. Right now, the standard helmet is mostly designed to prevent skull fractures and cushion players against direct, linear hits. They do almost nothing for the hits that twist players’ heads violently. In fact, the helmet may partly make those kind of hits worse.

The need for better helmets is becoming even more pressing: a growing body of research shows that repeated concussions and impacts come with serious risks. The brains of many former football players have shown signs of neurodegenerative disease. The effects of this condition can include debilitating symptoms, such as memory loss, erratic behavior, impaired judgment, and depression. The head needs even more protection than originally thought.

Most dads wouldn’t let the guy dating their daughter anywhere near their new car. But, Hyundai says, there could be some benefits to handing over the keys.

In one of its four Super Bowl ads, Hyundai has comedian Kevin Hart hand over the keys to his new Genesis sedan — who then uses a smartwatch app to track the location of the vehicle so he can follow (stalk) the happy couple to the movies, a fair, and to a romantic make-out spot. And then scare the shit out of the young gentleman and keep him away from his daughter.

Everybody does guac. That’s what you do on Super Bowl Sunday: you make a bowl of guacamole, heat up some beer-battered wings that you poured straight out of a plastic bag onto a griddle pan, chill the drinks, throw on an ill-fitting jersey, and turn on the TV. And that’s cool. I guess. I mean, I won’t say guac is uncool.

But you know what’s really great? Lightbulb recipes.

Yeeaaaaaah

Well my name is Todd, and I got a job

Workin’ for The Man from 9 to 5

When I’m on the road, feelin’ bad and bold

It’s the only time I feel alive

Continuing what has become something of a theme for Audi, the German luxury carmaker has a Moon-themed ad running in the first quarter of the Super Bowl this weekend.

It’s called “The Commander” and it shows a retired astronaut, quietly reminiscing at home about his interplanetary journey from long ago. But, according to Audi, he can recapture his youth by driving his son’s Audi R8.

This Sunday, Doritos will continue its tradition of crowdsourcing its Super Bowl commercials. In its decade-long run, what began as a supposed opportunity for aspirational filmmakers has become a cheap and tacky campaign that exploits creators of free labor and promotion. Like the snack it’s selling, the campaign will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

In 2006, Doritos solicited amateur filmmakers and Hollywood dreamers to produce the junk food maker’s Super Bowl ad on spec — industry jargon for “without pay.” Doritos selected five videos from over a thousand submissions, and asked website visitors to vote for which ad would air during the Super Bowl. The chip maker awarded the five creators $10,000 and trip to Detroit, where they attended a Super Bowl party but not the actual football game.

Sports are a pretty intuitive place for augmented reality: we already watch them with a bevy of numerical overlays, replays, and commentary. So Microsoft’s “future of football,” featuring its HoloLens headset, unsurprisingly makes a lot of sense. It’s a highlight reel showcasing every possible football-spectatorship-related use of HoloLens, from getting an expanded view of the screen to watching tiny 3D figures enact plays on your coffee table. I’m not sure whether most viewers want life-sized models of players to burst through their walls like the Kool-Aid Man, but then again, I’m not much of a football fan.

HoloLens videos have a tendency to oversell what its images actually look like, but most of the uses here are at least theoretically feasible. The field of view, for example, can accommodate a medium-sized coffee table from a reasonable distance. It’s a little harder to buy a wall-sized video screen, but that depends largely on how much space viewers can put between themselves and the wall.

Super Bowl 50 approaches with the reliability of the morning sun, and yet, you still have so many questions. There are the obvious questions, which I can answer here.

What teams are in the Super Bowl? The Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers.