We went out to dinner at Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que and then we went to the movies. Doug took Samantha to see Cars and Sarah and I went to see Superman Returns. I wanted to see "Cars" but Doug had promised Samantha that he would take her (so it was going to be a Daddy/Samantha thing) and Sarah didn't want to see it so I took her to see "Superman Returns."
I had absolutely no desire to see the movie. I had seen the original Superman movies and I've even watched the original series, so I wasn't interested in a remake but fortunately this wasn't a remake. I had not idea what to expect because I hadn't read the reviews (just the media coverage), the only thing I knew was that Superman wasn't fighting for the American way anymore.
It was a surprisingly good movie. I really enjoyed it, the special effects were pretty good, and the acting was OK. The plot was pretty good but the pace was a little slow in the beginning. The first part of the movie could have been cut from the film and it wouldn't have been missed.
The director used way too many closeups for dramatic effect (especially in the beginning) and it was very annoying. Trying to create drama with extreme closeups and plodding music isn't very effective and can put the audience to sleep. Fortunately, there was enough action in the movie to offset the director's bad judgment. I thought the flight scenes were good and I liked the opening of the movie -- clearly computer generated worlds exploding and reforming, really cool.
There are some surprises in the movie that I'm not going to spoil and I was not entirely pleased by them. I thought it made for a very awkward situation and it was distracting. But overall I enjoyed the movie and so did Sarah. Here's her review:
Superman was a really good movie. It was action packed and very suspenseful. I thought it was well acted too . I would give it 5 stars.One weird thing about the movie is Superman's cape, it looks like it was made out of leather or something. And was a weird burgundy color. It looks red on the website but it looks burgundy in the movie.
BTW, Doug and Samantha really loved "Cars." Doug said it had a good moral message. He said it wasn't as good as "The Incredibles" but that it was pretty good. Samantha loved it (of course).
