Man of Steel

Father's Day 2013. Great timing for the opening weekend of Superman, Man of Steel. Of course, I treated my hubby to a Sunday matinee. Now, keep in mind, we're old. We've seen our share of Superman movies. More than, let's say, my 24 year old son has, who went with us to the movie. And we had already heard various feedback before heading out - everything from the movie being a big disappointment to "awesome" and "best Superman ever". Being a family of geeks (yes, we all like super heroes - who doesn't?), we knew we had to check it out despite the nay-sayers and we went into it with open minds. No big expectations. No ramped-up level of excitement.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Man of Steel

Which is a good thing because we would have been in for a let-down.

Now, I don't mean to make it sound like it was a worthless movie. Fact of the matter is, it was more than acceptable in some parts. I think Tom Bergeron (host of ABC's Dancing with the Stars) summed it up best in a weekend tweet: "It was like 2 movies in one: First 90 minutes, pretty good. Last hour a comically overdone video game". Spot on, Tom, spot on.

The first half of the movie sets the story for who Superman is, where he came from, how he is settling into his place on Earth and so on. There's an evil villian from Krypton who comes after farm boy Clark (aka the Man of Steel) and conflict ensues. And it goes on and on.... and on. And to make matters worse than "are they ever gonna wrap this up?", the fight scenes in the 2nd half of the movie are high on CGI overload! Although Henry Cavill is very nice to look at through the entire film, his extremely handsome features start to pale by the end when the boredom starts to set in. I know! Superman should not be boring but there it is. Over the top building smashing and car flipping was losing my attention!

On the plus side, I loved Kevin Costner as Clark's Earth Dad and Amy Adams is an acceptable Lois Lane (although, her knowing all of Clark's secrets before he even becomes an employee at the Daily Planet is a transgression that I am not okay with!) I personally would have liked a little more romance and humor but that alone didn't make or break this movie. Man of Steel is definitely a foundation for more movies to come - hopefully offering a little more substance and not as much X-Box fodder.


Product Specs:
Item: Man of Steel
Location: Rave Cinemas, Fallen Timbers, Maumee, OH
Price: @ $7.00 per adult - matinee
Worth it?: Good enough but be prepared - you will either be wowed by the excessive CGI or leave feeling "meh - could have been better." Don't say I didn't warn you.

The Internship

Last week, I needed a night out and that usually means hitting the movies. As there weren't a whole lot of promising options in the theaters, we (my friend Kathy and I) settled on The Internship, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. After we made that decision for our girls night out, we were suddenly joined by my son and then both of our husbands, although I believe the only reason the husbands went along was because dinner was included in the evening and they're not usually ones to pass up a meal. So dinner complete, we headed to the theater with the hope that we weren't about to waste our money evening.

98 Degrees 2.0 - or 1.0 Rehashed?

When you think of "Boy Band", I'm guessing you aren't thinking that a 50+ year old married mother of 2 would be the typical fan. In my case, you'd be dead wrong. I've been a fan of boy bands since the days of the Osmonds (isn't that what they'd call the Osmonds these days?). I have every 'NSync, Backstreet Boys and 98 Degrees disc and they are all loaded on my iPod. I was a little too old when New Kids on the Block came on the scene or I'd be a fan of them too.

I'm sorry. It's one of my less-than-stellar traits. Let's just call it a juvenile guilty pleasure.

So imagine my delight when I stumbled across a new release by 98 Degrees (2.0). As I never could resist Nick Lachey, I bought that CD without knowing anything about it. I mean, was it even possible that I wouldn't like it?

Um, turns out it was very possible.

Dan Brown's Inferno

I have been a fan of Dan Brown since The Da Vinci Code but I've become a little less enamored of the author's writing with each subsequent book featuring the "hero" Robert Langdon. And in the case of Inferno, Dan Brown's newest novel, I think my enchantment with Mr. Brown has come to a close.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

I know I am going to journey into uncharted territory here and possibly offend a few Trekkies in the process but it's my "job" to review the newest movie in the Star Trek enterprise (see what I did there?) and despite my lack of Trek knowledge (sorry, I live with a Jedi padawan), I will offer what insight I can to the common movie-goer.

I loved it. You will too.

Iron Man 3

This was geek weekend in our house. First, Saturday was a national holiday: May the 4th Be With You. Oh, you don't celebrate that one? How about this one: Free Comic Book Day? No? Huh. Both days are treasured in my family of nerds and geeks. I say that lovingly and they (the family members to which I am referring) would proudly agree with me.

Magic Kingdom

In the last of my three part Florida trip reviews (or rather, Florida theme park reviews), I'm taking you to Disney's Magic Kingdom. Oh, you've been there before? Well, who hasn't! Let's see if your impression of the Happiest Place on Earth agree with mine then, shall we?

Universal Orlando - (Not) The Happiest Place on Earth

Part 2 of my Florida theme park reviews focuses on the main Universal Studios theme park in Orlando (you can see Part 1 - Islands of Adventure - primarily The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - here). And you may have already suspected by my title that we did not enjoy this park. Let me just say before I get any deeper in Scooby doo-doo with the Universal lovers out there, if I was younger and a fan of thrill rides, I would have enjoyed this park a whole lot more. Overall, it's a clean, interesting, attractive park. It boasts a great selection of memorable movie themed attractions (in the form of rides, for the most part). But as we were a party of two non-roller coaster/spinny ride people and a third in a wheelchair, we found the park had little to offer in the way of entertainment.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Universal Orlando

Back from a week's vacation to the land of sun and fun - Florida! And I have a couple of reviews for you because I know Florida and theme parks are very popular vacation spots!

This first (of three) reviews is on the highlight of our trip - The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando. We are a family of Harry Potter fan(atic)s! So we have been wanting to go take this trip since Islands of Adventure expanded to include Harry Potter world. And we were NOT disappointed!

OZ, the Great (?) and Powerful (??)

There's been a lot of buzz this past week about the new Oz movie and truth be told, when I had seen previews for it in the past, I was definitely intrigued. I don't say that about all previews. Many of them I say "Absolutely not" or "That looks cute" but Oz caught my attention and it was certainly on my go-spend-money-at-the-theater radar. And when all my Facebook friends started raving about how good it was - great even - I knew I had to see it.

I really need to start questioning the judgement of my friends.