This week Nike unloaded three very different campaigns, but all seemed oddly set in the same generically walled-off room you'd expect to find in John Malkovich's head before the set dressers have their way with it.

"Masks" features six athletes from slugger Albert Pujols to Torii Hunter in skintight Nike wear getting their game faces on and turning into the warrior/hunter-gatherers we all secretly want to be. As the music and cuts ramp up to remind us of the intensity of "the game", our pro warriors go tribal, donning various headgear (and heads) from savannah chic (gazelle) to a Hannibal Lector throwaway number designed by Marquis de Sade and even a Venus flytrap.

Though well put together by Tarsem of @radical, this spot prompts a few observations: (a) pro athletes as seen from the distance of a TV screen are beginning to look a lot like video game characters, and there will no doubt come a day when we can't tell them apart; (b) at the rate we're going, we probably won't care; and (c) the greatest evil of this century could very well be digital testosterone.

Call us s grumpy sports purist, but it's spots like these that make us long for the smell of grass and hardwood, and seem to be taking us further away from the intimacies of the ballpark or football stadium. From Wieden + Kennedy, London.

On the other hand, there's "Stand Up Speak Up", a weird little Nike anti-racism PSA addressing what Arsenal superstar Thierry Henry calls "the biggest problem facing football in Europe." Irony rather than testosterone is in the air as Ronaldinho joins Henry in the room - this time with a curtain behind them - as they communicate their message silently and separately by cue cards.

Although ably conceived by Donna Lamar for radical's London office, it tries unsuccessfully to borrow a page each from Errol Morris and Bob Dylan, likely because we have a hard time identifying sympathetically with overpaid footballers even when their griping is valid. The campaign targets fans to Stand Up and Speak Up against hooligans who hurl racial epithets at the athletes, but a better execution might have been to get real fans to do the talking. A black and white wristband is the symbol of the campaign and will be available across Europe.

Last but definitely not least comes a series of four spots in the "Nike Women" campaign produced by RAF, Stockholm and helmed by Johan Renck. Kind of like the nightmare you might have after a bad spin class, they're set in that room again.

It may be longer, but there are still no doors or windows as mostly hardcore Nike women dance off against an alien-sized polygonal speaker throbbing out a relentless beat. Out of the four, including "Keep Up", "Spot and Spin" and "Booty Shake", "Kimberly" is our favorite because she's a girl with "real curves" who knows when to step up and when to turn her back and walk away. Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam.

View the spots:

Stand Up Speak Up
Keep Up
Spot and Spin
Booty Shake
Kimberly

www.radicalmedia.com
www.wk.com