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Scarlett Johansson loses to a psychic Alexa assistant in Amazon Super Bowl ad
Even Black Widow herself couldn't handle this much tech.
From Marvel’s green screen CGI effects to Black Widow gadgets galore, Scarlett Johansson isn’t exactly a stranger to the world of high-tech tricks. But Johansson and real-life spouse Colin Jost are in way over their heads in a new Super Bowl commercial — one that wonders what life would be like if Amazon’s virtual Alexa assistant had the next-level power to read people’s minds.
It’s automation run amok as Alexa goes from being benignly helpful to brutally honest. In Amazon’s tongue-in-cheek nightmare of tech with psychic powers, Alexa swerves from doing welcome chores (like chilling the wine on game day) to grossing out dinner guests by happily announcing to the entire room that Colin let the oysters they’re eating sit “in the car for five hours.”
Perhaps it’s just Amazon’s way of saying technology has its place, even in a celebrity home — but whatever it is, it’s pretty funny. Check it out:
From exposing fibs like Johansson’s declared distaste for starring opposite hunks in movie love scenes (cue the audio for Fleetwood Mac’s “Little Lies”), to outing her secret family recipe for fresh-baked bread (she bought it at Whole Foods, where else?), this more dystopian version of Alexa is probably armed with just a little too much power. Then again, that’s the whole point. Amazon’s YouTube tease sets up the clip with the perfect hook: “Is Alexa reading minds a good idea? No. No it is not.”
Sadly, even this all-seeing version of Alexa doesn’t offer the inside scoop on what Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff was really thinking when she sacrificed herself to save humanity in Avengers: Endgame. But in Amazon’s fictitious world where its digital helper knows your deepest, darkest secrets, it’s a safe bet that the answer’s probably buried somewhere deep in a tech-center database. All we need to trigger it, it seems, is an innocent conversation in the Johansson-Jost house.
Catch Alexa reading minds, along with tons more head-turning big-budget ads this Sunday, when the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams square off in Super Bowl LVI. Pre-game festivities kick off on NBC and Peacock beginning at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 13, leading up to the main event at 6:30 p.m.
