The Super Bowl was absolutely crammed to the rafters with ads for movies, but a couple stood out above the rest in terms of film fan interest, not least Captain America, as it offers us the first official footage from the movie. So how does it look? Well we’ve only got 30 seconds to judge, but it’s looking pretty awesome. The effects for making Chris Evans look ridiculously weedy are good, and then once he becomes Captain America, the footage just gets better. Released to coincide with the TV spot was the first official poster, so take a look at that below, and watch the footage underneath that.

It’s almost like there’s a competition between JJ Abrams and Christopher Nolan about who can be most secretive, so we know almost nothing about their films until they arrive in cinemas. This year we’ve got Abrams Super 8, which we’ve had an emigmatic teaser trailer for, but there’s been little more info on it other than that Steven Spielberg will produce, it’ll go for a tone reminscent of his films in the 70s and 80s, and will probably have kids unwittingly capturing something unexpected on a Super 8 camera.

However now we’ve got a little more info, as a Super Bowl TV spot has arrived, which gives us more footage from the movie and really sells the Spielberg vibe. Indeed some of the shots even deliberately mimic famous ones from ET and Close Encounters. 

Abrams also did a tie-in interview with the LA Times, in which he finally revealed more info. He says, “To me, all people need to know is that it’s an adventure about a small town and it’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s scary and there’s a mystery: What is this thing that has escaped? What are the ramifications of its presence? And what is the effect on people? But I know that’s not enough. Look, I feel we need a little bit of a coming-out party because we are up against massive franchises and brands and most people don’t know what ‘Super 8? means. We’re a complete anomaly in a summer of huge films … and we don’t want to be so silent or coy that people don’t care or don’t hear about it.” So it sounds like he’s realised he can’t be as secretive about this one as he was about Cloverfield.

The article also reveals that the film ‘is set in Ohio in 1979 and introduces a troupe of six youngsters who are using a Super 8 camera to make their own zombie movie. One fateful night, their project takes them to a lonely stretch of rural railroad tracks and, as the camera rolls, calamity strikes — a truck collides with an oncoming locomotive and a hellacious derailment fills the night with screaming metal and raining fire. Then something emerges from the wreckage, something decidedly inhuman.’

The movie apparently started off as two different films, which ended up being combined. One was a Stand By Me-style coming of age flick about kids making Super 8 movies in the late-1970s, while the other was about the US government getting paranoid and shipping all their Area 51 secrets to another location, only for one of the trains not to reach its final destination. Expect to hear more about Super 8 soon, before it reaches cinemas in May, but click below for the Super Bowl ad.

We had a teaser trailer for Transformers: Dark of The Moon a couple of months ago, but that told us little and largely seemed to have been made specifically to intrigue rather than show us footage from the movie. However now we have the Super Bowl spot, which suggests Michael Bay hasn’t decided this third bot adventure should be a quiet character drama, and that is should instead provide masses more explosions and robot-on-robot fighting. Goodness knows from this what the plot is all about (then again, I watched all of Revenge Of The Fallen and still don’t know what that was about), but I think it’s safe to say Dark Of The Moon will be action packed when it reaches cinemas on July 1st.

We’ve had a trailer for Thor, but it’s nearly all new footage for the Super Bowl ad, which tries to sell this different sort of Superhero flick in only 30 seconds. The problem the film has is that while most superhero flicks have been pretty much sci-fi based, Thor attempts to bring in the fantasy/magic element that’s long been part of many comic books, but hasn’t appeared so much in the movies. It may not have much time to do it, but the ad does a good job of making it look like a great mix of science-fiction and fantasy, although we’ll have to wait for the movie to see whether it feels like Thor can fit into the world of Iron Man and Captain America for The Avengers. Thor will be in cinemas on April 29th.

While most Super Bowl ads are only 30 seconds long, Disney has released an extended 60 second long version of their ad for Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, giving us even more footage from the upcoming sequel to the multi-billion dollar franchise. It appears we can expect plenty of derring do and lots of Jack Sparow, and quite frankly that’s all we want, isn’t it? The plot sees Jack involved with Blackbeard and a quest to find the legendary fountain of youth, but as this trailer shows, there’s also mermaids and a new love interest for Jack in the form of Penelope Cruz. Click below to take a look. The film arrives in cinemas on May 18th.

We’ve posted the Super Bowl ads for Captain America, Super 8, Transformers 3, Thor and Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 separately, but now it’s time for a round-up of the best of the rest. The Super Bowl was packed with movie ads, to the point where it’s difficult to know how they fitted in a football game, so click below to take a look at the spots for Fast Five (the fifth Fast & Furious flick), Cowboys & Aliens, Battle: Los Angeles, Priest, Drive Angry, Limitless, Rango and Just Go With It. With all these films in cinemas before the end of the summer, it look like we’re going to have one hell of a cinematic year.