Today, I took two of my kids, Camden and Maddie, to see Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. We’ve been looking forward to seeing the movie since we first heard about it several months ago. I wanted to go Thursday night but wanted to wait until my kids (and wife) could go with me. If you’ve ever taken kids to a movie, you know that they can be a real wildcard (I’ve missed crucial parts of movies in the past because of a kid needing to go to the bathroom).
I wanted to go to my favorite movie theater down the street with the reclining leather chairs but all the movies were sold out until late in the evening. After picking another theater and buying the tickets online, we headed out. I was really surprised that the theater wasn’t super crowded. After picking up our tickets, we hit the snack bar and loaded up on drinks, popcorn, candy, pretzels and nachos. We ended up sitting in the last row in a huge movie theater. I played some Jedi mind tricks with my kids to sit there because I knew they’d be moving around a lot and figured they would be asking lots of questions (and they did).
Let’s start with the previews. For some reason, I had high expectations. Of the six or seven movies they previewed, I can only remember one, LEGO Batman. And that’s because I love Batman and I love LEGO. The rest of the previews were blah and I thought they were going to go on forever.
The movie itself was fairly action-packed but for every minute of action, there were two or three minutes of slow scenes. I really only went to the see Batman and there wasn’t nearly enough of him. Superman is okay but I wouldn’t pay to see him in a movie at the theater. Ben Affleck did a pretty good job playing Batman but I’d really need to see more of him to give a full review. Without spoiling the movie, I thought the previews were a little misleading. They were out of context of what actually happens in the movie. I’ll leave it at that.
Hopefully, you’re familiar with the “More cowbell” sketch from Saturday Night Live featuring Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken.
For now, I’ll rank Affleck third on my list of actors that have portrayed Batman since I was a kid. Micheal Keaton is still my all-time favorite but maybe that will change after I see more Affleck in the next Batman flick. George Clooney stays at the bottom of the list. I’d put him lower but no one sucked more than him.
My favorite Batmans
- Michael Keaton
- Christian Bale
- Ben Affleck
- Val Kilmer
- George Clooney
Anyway, back to the movie.
Overall, I thought the movie was fine. I didn’t walk out pissed that I spent the money but I also don’t think I’ll be running out to rent the DVD when it’s released. I enjoyed spending the time with the kids and they seemed to like it. I was worried that it wouldn’t be appropriate for the kids but other than a couple of minor curse words (no “F” bombs) and some suspenseful parts (the kids perceived them as scary), it was fine. The movie was a little long at around 2.5 hours but we never got bored watching it.
Our Thoughts
I didn’t have a chance to get Maddie’s review on camera but said she liked the movie. After it was over, I asked her who was her favorite character, Batman or Superman. Her response? Wonder Woman. That’s my girl!
Here’s what Camden thought:
I recommend that you see the movie. I think it’s something that the whole family would enjoy. Like I said above, I went to see Batman and thought there wasn’t enough of him but I guess that should be expected in a movie featuring multiple super heroes. It was still worth the time.
My biggest disappointment? There weren’t any bonus scenes after the credits. I think Marvel has DC on this one. I guess in the future, I need to get smarter about checking for bonus scenes before sitting through 15 minutes of credits. Fortunately, the kids were fine with it.
Featured photo credit – I mentioned to Camden that I wished I had gotten a picture of us in the movie theater to use in this blog post. I said something about using our LEGO sets and he came up with the scene pictured above. He even took the picture with my phone.
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