Justin Timberlake has a history of being upstaged during Super Bowl Halftime shows.
Im being cruel to be kind here.
And, look, we should all be so lucky as to get overshadowed at the Super Bowl twice.
Credit: Christopher Polk/Getty Images
He celebrated his history, and dodged it.
In fact, he was the only living star performer onstage, though to me he felt buried.
Thats a line from Filthy, and maybe a pre-emptive strike against criticism.
But the first half of his performancedidfeel fake.
So then we lost him amid the laser-hurricanes, running from one elaborate set to another.
There was something too dutiful here.
(And it turns out that Rock Your Body is 22.7% lamer without that lyric.)
The Prince homage was sincere, whatever your thoughts on the weirdness of posthumous duets.
Im not sure the medley-mashup structure of the Halftime Show played to Timberlakes strengths.
He wrapped up with that epidemically catchyTrollssong, and dutifully raced into the stands for a dutiful selfie.
He played it too safe; he took Sexy away.C
