Dang, kids. My bad. It's been so long, I'm lucky you're even reading this. I'm lucky you even checked back with me. Just in time for me to go on a week's vacation. But before I go, I have a movie review. And there's something special about this movie review. It's for a movie which I bet, none of you (unless your name is Andy, John Rhine, or Marc) have seen.
This week I (along with the previously mentioned) went to the Arts Conference at Willow Creek in Chicago. We were there with about 5,000 other artists from around the country. On the first night, they made an announcement that they were going to be giving away 500 tickets to see Superman Returns, which isn't released until June 28th. Okay, enough with me bragging and on to the review...
THE REVIEW
Superman Returns builds on the previous Superman movies under the premise that Superman has left Earth for 5 years to visit Planet Krypton after astronomers think they discover remains of the planet off in space(The idea of Superman flying in space by himself for 5 years is very cool to me). When he comes back to Earth, he finds that Lois Lane has a fiance' and a child.
First, I'll give the bad. I thought that Kate Bosworth as Lois was a bad choice. I don't have any better ideas for you, but she seemed too young and she doesn't do much for me. I mean, I think the Son of Krypton could do A LOT better than this version of Lois. At least bring back Teri Hatcher.
Please, for the love of everything that is good and pure, bring back Teri Hatcher.
That was pretty much it for the bad. Minus a few plot question marks, there wasn't a whole lot that left me empty-handed. Let's move on to the good and the great...
I was perhaps most excited about Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. He didn't knock it out of the park, but did a very good job. I would have liked to see a little more humor come from Lex in this one, but still a decent balance of comedy and hatred came from Spacey.
But the best part of the whole movie was Brandon Routh, who played Superman. I was glad they cast an "unknown" for the role, and he did not disappoint. With the movie building on the previous franchise, Routh looked liked and sounded like Reeves in the first four movies. I honestly don't think he could have done anything to do a better job.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Superman exceeded my expectations with great action, story, and link to the previous movie. It doesn't really try to invent a new Superman, but adds on the existing work done. I'd rank it as the best recent comic-movie release, just barely topping Batman Begins and X-Men
**** (out of 5)
