Madonna Super Bowl Reviews (Video)

I wouldn't say reviews of Madonna's Super Bowl Halftime extravaganza are very enthusiastic. They aren't bad, but they're not great.

Here's video of the Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show:



Here's a sampling of reviews of Madonna's Super Bowl halftime performance:
Los Angeles Times:

To label the selection of Madonna as a halftime performer at the Super Bowl as curious is to neglect the surreal history of what has become one of the year's most discussed 10 minutes of music on American television. From the high-water mark Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake nip slip to the weird nonsequitur Rolling Stones gig to a children's choir singing "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," the Super Bowl has never been short on ridiculousness.

But all different kinds of musical craziness had nothing on this year's Bridgestone Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show performance. Madonna was defiantly unconcerned with the more conservative red state wing of the football fan base who'd never be caught dead singing along to one of her songs, and her halftime show was pure spectacle by the Cleopatra of the game.

Think about it. In less than 10 minutes, America watched marching warriors pulling a massive chariot; faux trumpeters announcing the arrival of Madonna; a man name Redfoo with a ridiculously large afro fronting a duo called LMFAO; a polyglot British-Sri Lankan rapper slyly flipping the bird at the camera; a cartoonish multiple-personality Nicki Minaj; and a charismatic Buddha of a singer with a golden voice in one of the best bandleader outfits ever created, to say nothing of his stunning black choir robe.

At the center of it all was Madonna in her element, vogueing with a break-dancing lyre player, riding a bejeweled human serpent, slipping into her best single of the '00s, "Music," dancing near a tightrope walker who did a back flip as she passed, and sitting on Redfoo's shoulders during a mash-up with LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem." We saw Madonna looking absolutely silly as a 53-year-old cheerleader with equally noncheerleaders M.I.A. and rapper Minaj, and, perhaps most improbable of all, Madonna in front of a church choir pretending to be chaste.

...But despite its success AND extravagance, this whole halftime package most of all was little more than an ingeniously well planned — and shockingly transparent — advertisement for "MDNA," and not much more. The rollout for the album began with the announcement that she'd be performing at the Super Bowl and was teased by a music video released Friday for her new single, "Give Me All You're Luvin'," featuring Minaj and with a remix also featuring LMFAO, which, of course, she performed. Talk about marketing to a lot of eyeballs.

But then Madonna is Madonna for a reason. And we saw it firsthand Sunday.

Chicago Sun-Times:

Leave it to Madonna to transition from over-the-top Roman decadence to a gospel revival meetin' within the span of barely 15 minutes.

The veteran pop star's satisfying halftime spectacle in the middle of Sunday night's Super Bowl XLVI hopscotched through her musical career and featured its own second string team of special guests.

Entering Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium in full Cleopatra mode, the mighty Madonna Louise Ciccone, now 53, was preceded by a legion of Roman soldiers clad in black and gold armor. Revealed behind enormous palm fronds, she barked, "What are you looking at?" before launching into "Vogue." Poses were struck, nothing was to it.

The Material Girl's next song was the dancefloor-designed title track to her 2000 album "Music," and from that point on, Madonna's performance wasn't entirely her own.

A track-suited dancer flipped back and forth on a tight wire, while Madonna bobbed helplessly to one side. As the song ended, the wacky rock duo LMFAO joined Madge on stage for a smidge of their own "Party Rock Anthem" and "Sexy and I Know It."

Next up was "Give Me All Your Luvin'," the humdrum single released ahead of next month's new Madonna album, "MDNA." As in the video for the thin, self-celebratory dance-pop tune -- complete with a shameless tied-in football motif -- Madonna (now shaking golden pom poms) shared the spotlight with M.I.A., Nicki Minaj and a squad of gyrating cheerleaders.

If everything's over-the-top (including the marketing) and the costumes are outlandish, you know who comes next. After a marching drum corps strode on stage, suggesting a Fleetwood Mac appearance, the omnipresent Cee Lo Green joined Madonna for a one-two punch finale of "Express Yourself" and "Like a Prayer." Despite the song's gospel groove and Green's sequined choir robe, no one, thank heaven, Tebowed.

Green didn't contribute much and seemed to be there largely as a means of promoting "The Voice." This is Madonna, and she sounded great (however "supported" her vocals might have been) by herself. It's the Super Bowl, of course, so spectacle is a given. But with all these side characters crowding her on stage as well as in the new video and recording, we're left to wonder as we approach another album from once such a singular personality: Can this sister still do it for herself?

The show's ending was anticlimactic -- but interesting. Instead of basking in a flash-bulbed, curtain-call moment, Madonna suddenly disappeared through a smoke-shrouded trap door. She sang the last note from under the stage, while our focus was redirected to the words "World Peace" illuminated across the Super Bowl field. An admirable momentary secession of her own glory.

Philadelphia Inquirer:

Where does the the Madonna Super Bowl half time show rank with the competition? I'd put it above the Black Eyed Peas and The Who, below Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, and not even close to Prince, the clear gold standard of recent years.

The Material Mum started out pretending she was Cleopatra with a phalanx of faux-Roman dancers on "Vogue," then moved into her fabulous electro-pop hit "Music," with those two hairy dudes from LMFAO acting as helpmates.

Next was the new single "Give Me All Your Luvin'," with Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. chanting their role model / employer's name. Minaj's rapid-fire rap gave the ultra-choreographed performance a welcome burst of energy, and agit-popstress M.I.A. was clearly prepared for the criticism that participating in such a mainstream extravaganza might gain her grief with her indie fanbase. Her strategy: Flipping the entire world the bird on television, with NBC techies failing in their attempt to scramble her one raised digit.

Was that the most interesting thing that happened during the entire performance, during which it never appeared that Madonna was doing her own singing? Probably.

New York Times:

The bad girl is a grown-up now, like it or not. Madonna, 53, danced her way back toward worldwide visibility Sunday as the halftime attraction for the Super Bowl, with a giant supporting cast — gladiators, acrobats, cheerleaders, drummers, a gospel choir — and a downright benign stance.

She sang about dancing, music, loving and praying, with a little star power on the side. It’s impossible to guess what the Madonna of decades past, fascinated with lust, power, religion and transgression, might have done with this platform. But it’s probably not something the Super Bowl would have booked in the first place.

...For the worldwide audience of her halftime show, Madonna went all out on spectacle; at the Super Bowl, anything less would be dwarfed. She arrived on the field to sing “Vogue” as a gold-robed queen with a platoon of gladiators, dancing on a giant throne and doing precise, right-angle moves amid acrobats from Cirque du Soleil. “Music” brought her to the top of a bleacher-like set surrounded by more acrobatics; soon, she was assisted in cartwheels that had her head-over-heels. The pop duo LMFAO joined her, interspersing their 2011 hit “Party Rock Anthem” and giving Madonna a chance to deliver the line “I’m sexy and I know it” from another LMFAO song.

As a chorus line of cheerleaders filled the stage, Madonna grabbed golden pompoms for “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” which has a handclapping beat reminiscent of Toni Basil’s 1982 “Mickey.” It’s a heavy-handedly self-promoting song — “L-U-V Madonna, Y-O-U you wanna” — that’s second-tier Madonna at best. Guest raps by Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. didn’t make the song’s retro-rock any fresher. But M.I.A. offered the Super Bowl set’s glimmer of transgression: Her verse included half of a four-letter word while she raised her middle finger.

The drum corps appeared, with the singer Cee Lo Green, to back Madonna and Green for snippets of her “Open Your Heart” and “Express Yourself.” Then came the reverence in “Like a Prayer,” a song that has shed any hint of double-entendre it might have had when it was released in 1989. A black-and-white-robed choir joined Green and Madonna, who had gotten herself into a long dress. The stadium flickered with white lights, Green belted like a soul-gospel singer and Madonna beamed, on and off her knees, until she disappeared in a blast of smoke, singing, “I hear you call my name and it feels like home.”

Madonna wasn’t the indefatigable trouper of years past. Though she’s still lithe, she measured her moves, letting her supporting cast offer distractions. As she climbed into the bleachers during “Music,” she missed a step, though she recovered fast. At the Super Bowl, Madonna was the party girl turned regent: a queen on her throne, a homecoming queen strutting in the bleachers, a church singer fronting a choir. At the end, the words World Peace glowed from the field in giant letters. Madonna was proffering virtue.

CBS New York:

Madonna positioned herself as the queen of a new generation of pop stars at the Super Bowl halftime show — complete with throne — but didn’t have complete control of her show.

Guest singer M.I.A. flipped the middle finger to the audience after uttering a barely disguised expletive during a performance of Madonna’s new single. M.I.A. was one of two guests who contributed vocals to the bubblegum pop song, “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” along with Nicki Minaj. Dance rockers LMFAO and singer Cee Lo also joined the halftime show.

“Madonna rocking … well received here in the stadium,” WFAN’s Boomer Esiason posted to his Twitter account.

“When did Madonna forget how to dance?” tweeted Craig Carton, Boomer’s morning show co-host. “Oh thats right last time she had a hit.”

Madonna seemed like Roman royalty when muscle-bound men carried her extravagant throne across the football field to the stage for her opening song, “Vogue.”

The singing and dancing on that song was smartly choreographed, as Madonna moved more deliberately but still adroitly in moves that took into account that she’s now in her 50s. She briefly appeared to stumble at one point while trying to make a step on the stage set, but recovered in time.

She let a tightrope walker make the more acrobatic moves during a performance of “Music.”

That song was augmented by dance rockers LMFAO, who performed a snippet of “Party Rock” as Madonna joined them in a brief routine.

Madonna carried gold pompons for a performance of her new single. Twitter was alight with questions about the vocals being lip synched or augmented by tapes, particularly during this song.

At the end of her lines, M.I.A. appeared to sing “I don’t give a (expletive),” although it was hard to hear clearly. Her extension of a middle finger to the audience was clearly visible, though. The camera shot briefly blurred after that, but too late.

The best guest was clearly Cee Lo, who joined Madonna for the final song, “Like a Prayer.” They were joined by a robed chorus in the show’s most soaring performance.

With a puff of white smoke, Madonna disappeared down a trap door in the stage, and lights on the field spelled out “World Peace.”

The veteran star’s vocals were not strong throughout, lending to the sense of distance during the spectacle.

Billboard:

It's Madonna Louise Ciccone's world, we're just living in it. The pop icon took to the world's biggest stage to rock three-and-a-half older tracks and a playful new song during the Super Bowl halftime show.

Entering on a golden throne pushed by an army of dancing Roman gladiators, the 53-year-old singer started things off with her 1990 classic "Vogue." Around ten backup dancers kept the pace as she sauntered the scene in a head piece and black thigh-high boots.

By the time "Music" revved up, she was down to four very acrobatic backup dancers on a bandstand. To the side of the stage -- playing the parts of "Hey Mr. DJ" -- were those party rocking dudes of LMFAO at which point "Music" began getting an infusion of the SoCal duo's biggest hits, "Party Rock Anthem" and "Sexy And I Know It."

Those with sharp eyes may have noticed Madonna slipping a bit while she was atop the bandstand, but she quickly recovered with a smile.

Then came the new song "Give Me All Your Luvin.'" The track's two guest stars -- Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. -- made the trip to Indy and got wrapped up in the Rome/Cleopatra-esque concept. The cheerleader-themed track was a perfect pick for halftime show, no doubt.

M.I.A. may have caused a bit of controversy when at the end of her rapping bit, she flipped the bird at the camera while saying the lyrics, "I'mma say this once, yeah, I don't give a s--t."

NBC quickly apologized after the game, telling The Hollywood Reporter in a statement, "Our system was late to obscure the inappropriate gesture and we apologize to our viewers."

Here's video of M.I.A. giving the finger to Super Bowl viewers:



How sweet!

If M.I.A. thought acting out like that would get the same attention Janet Jackson and the wardrobe malfunction thing got, I think she's mistaken.

M.I.A. simply made a fool of herself. It was such a childish stunt. Just lame.

I think NBC wanted controversy to generate some buzz about the show, or there would have been a longer delay to cover any "mishaps." NBC's apology doesn't cut it.

Overall, I thought the halftime show was heavy on spectacle and light on talent. It was a gaudy mess.

That's OK. I expect the Super Bowl halftime show to be a quick shot of fun. It can't be judged like a concert. It always feels kind of rushed and compressed. The medley aspect makes it seem like a Time-Life ad.

Bottom line: I think Madonna set out to promote herself, not entertain the audience. It was a commercial. She exploited the forum.