Never has it been more apparent that there is a writer’s strike going on than with this year’s Super Bowl. On Sunday, I witnessed possibly the worst script ever for three hours of television.
We live in the era of big revelations, and twist endings. This year’s Super Bowl contained no such event. The game ended somewhat predictably at Patriots: 14,Giants: 17, and the "Post Game Show" turned out to be just that, a show that came after the game. The Jim Lehrer News Hour has had better surprise endings of late.
Just because the only time the score changed at all was at the very end of the game, does not a surprise ending make. You don’t get to call it a dramatic ending just because nothing else happened for the entire rest of your story. If the secret to a good surprise ending was having nothing happen at all the whole movie, and then something kind of interesting happen at the end, then Kevin Costner would be a genius.
Being indoctrinated by movies like "The Usual Suspects," and "The Sixth Sense," I’ve grown accustomed to trying to figure out the surprise ending in advance. I spent three hours saying to myself, "This Tom Brady character and this Eli Manning character never seem to be on the field at the same time, could they be the same person? Could Tom Brady be the Brad Pitt to Eli Manning’s Ed Norton?" Turned out they were just dudes on different teams, and the "offense" of both teams is never on the field at the same time. Boring. These "football players" weren’t so much as attacked by a smoke monster the entire time, and while there were cheerleaders, nobody bothered to save them, thus saving the world.
The character development was as sub par as the plot. Every character was two-dimensional at best. Most of them were one-dimensional. Randy Moss catches passes. That’s it, that’s all he does. He doesn’t throw the ball, or run the ball, and he never even sets foot on the field when his team doesn’t have the ball. What of his motivation, what of his drive? Bill Belichick was the most stereotypical villain I have ever seen, with his sleeves cut off his sweatshirt and his evil grimace. Had he been meant to be a parody of a villain, it would have been brilliant, but as the case was it was simply a snoozefest.
Had I known "According to Jim" reruns were playing on another channel the whole game, I would have turned it on and felt justified at having prepared a bean dip and invited 12 people over.