The air has cleared and the dust has settled. The 45th Annual NFL Super Bowl has ended along with a long line of sub-par advertising. This year proved to be another depressing year for creative thinking  Who were the rising stars that shined brighter than the rest? I’ll tell you if you keep reading!

Movie trailers really stood out the most as they have something more to gain, I believe, than the rest of the consumer products displayed tonight. But for the sake of fairness, I will separate the two categories. You can view every Super Bowl XLV ad over at Fanhouse.com. You can also see my short opinions on all of the ads on my older post.

Best Commercials (Unranked)

Volkswagon: Darth Vader Kid – The cutest and best genuine advertising of the night.

Chevy Camaro: Red Head – One of the best produced and driven commercials. It kept you guessing due to the narration.

Budweiser: Tiny Dancer – Their budget definitely showed in the production value of this great commercial.

Volkswagon: Black Beetle – Best use of animation. This commercial really was fun to watch and you’d never expect the product.

Groupon: Tibet – For their outlandish, scandalous, and controversial topic I applaud them for the big chance they took.

Funniest Commercials

Doritos: House Sitting – Perhaps the funniest commercial of the night. But not close to any of the classic SB ads made.

Bud Light: Product Placement/Dog Party – They both tie for being decently clever.

CarMax: Service Station – Quite funny for the message that CM was going for.

Bridgestone: Beaver – That beaver was pretty tight.

Wendy’s: Hits the Spot -Any time there is physical violence in the form of unexpected slapstick humor is a good time.

Worst Commercials

GoDaddy.Com: Danica Patrick – Redundant and stupid. These commercials are getting overplayed and weak.

Pepsi Max: First Date – Really lame and low production value. A waste of money and didn’t really convey too much of a message as to why we should drink Max.

Hyundai Elantra: Hypnotize – I felt it was a waste of space because it added no value to the product, it wasn’t clever, and/or funny.

Bridgestone: Reply All – This commercial was simply not funny and really had nothing to do with tires.

Teleflora – Weak dialogue and a weak message. I think 1800Flowers will still dominate. Who wants to use a flower service when the guy is not suave enough to write a message that is actually good. I can’t believe this company wasted $3,000,000 on this.

Sexiest

Sketchers: Kim Kardashian – Enough said.

Best Movie Trailers

Transformers: Dark of the Moon – This 30 second spot had everything on the line. They needed to prove to everyone that this would make up for that horrendous sequel. Michael Bay probably told the editor to literally take his balls and slap them on the screen. I was afraid they’d show too many money shots, but perhaps that was needed. We needed our faith in this franchise revitalized and this, I feel, certainly did the trick. The BayFormers are back in business. EPIC.

Cowboys and Aliens – We haven’t seen too much about this movie and now they really showed quite a lot. Just like the TF trailer, they really went all out in action sequences and really let loose to show everyone what to expect. This worked in their favor especially well because I don’t think many really knew about this project being that it is not a sequel or a known comic.

Rango – I didn’t really care too much about this movie, but the comedy at the beginning of this ad was great and the rest of the trailer really hit every spot in terms of what you want out of a movie. Well played.

Super 8 – This was another big trailer that needed to get some air time. We have not seen any footage yet about this film and it really conveyed a great tone of what we should expect. It felt like a Cloverfield in the sense that they are trying to keep this hush hush while they tried to show some really great shots of action to get your blood flowing.

Captain America: The First Avenger – We got to see the Captain in action, we got Red Skull, and we were fed tons of action. A great way to start the buzz for this movie. I really had my doubts that this would be just your typical sub-par Marvel film (THOR), but now my spirits are lifted.

Worst Movie Trailers

Mars Needs Moms / Rio – Both just look too kiddy even for kids. They didn’t really stand out and had no interesting moments about them.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – It’s not like the movie is going to suck, the trailer just sucked because it didn’t give us anything different that we haven’t seen before.

Fast Five – Do we really care any more?