The Empire Nikes Back

Nike's new World Cup advert makes its TV debut during tomorrow night's Champions League final, and its as big and beautiful as all Nike's expensive flagship adverts tend to be. They hired a real proper Director - Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose Biutiful has been a divisive entrant at Cannes this week and whose last two films I loathed - and as such, this spot is vibrant and energetic and cinematic. Iñárritu, for all the trite pomposity of his work, is technically adept and capable of real style, and both those qualities are showcased here. He is also Mexican, and he seems to get football, a Mexican national obsession, and understand some of the beauty of a man dribbling past an opponent, at least.
The Wayne Rooney passage is hilarious, too.

On your Nike

Every year, Nike gives a Big Name Director a Big budget and presumably a Big salary to make an Epic, overblown advert for them. They really take their branding seriously. Nike is life or death in Nike adverts. Anyway, Michael Mann did it in grand style a couple of years ago, as did David Fincher last year. Well, they've stuck with Fincher again for this year, and whatever you think of him taking corporate green, or whatever your opinion of what Americans call "football", or even if you think he sucks as a director, this is a beautiful piece of film-making from start to finish.