The Tourist

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 103 minutes





























Click below to watch The Tourist trailer.



In Columbia Pictures The Tourist, Angelina Jolie is under observation by Interpol in order to track her boyfriend - who stole millions of dollars from a gangster. Ravishing Jolie picks up innocent American tourist Johnny Depp on a train in order to convince Interpol and the gangsters following Jolie that Depp is the criminal they are searching for.

This is not the action-packed suspense movie that the trailers might lead you to believe. In fact, all of the action that you see in the movie is shown in the trailer. The movie is more of a 1940's or 50's film noir movie, the kind of movie of which I have not really seen since I was in film school. There is a certain amount of elegance in this type of movie that I miss when compared to the over-the-top action films. While there are elements of James Bond in The Tourist, especially with former James Bond Timothy Dalton as a chief inspector, The Tourist is more like Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. The movie being like North by Northwest, I am sure, is due to German writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's influence on the film.

In one of his rare more normal roles, Johnny Depp is great as the befuddled American tourist caught up in a world of intrigue by femme fatal Angelina Jolie, while Interpol, Scotland Yard, and the gangsters close in on Depp and Jolie. Jolie and Depp have some steamy scenes together as Jolie draws Depp more and more into her dangerous world. As a result of Depp's and Jolie's intriguing relationship, The Tourist makes for a great date movie.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 103 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

TRON: Legacy

Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG

Running time: 127 minutes































Click below to watch the Tron: Legacy trailer.



In Walt Disney Pictures TRON: LEGACY, Jeff Bridges troubled son Garrett Hedlund searches for his game designer father Bridges who has been missing for 20 years. In an old underground office at his father's old arcade business, Hedlund gets suddenly pulled into the digital grid world of Tron, where his father's old program Clu, Jeff Bridges, controls the grid and now wants to control Hedlund.

A sequel to the movie TRON, the movie TRON: LEGACY has several homages to the original movie, including the original Tron game which Hedlund tries to play, as well as having a song from Journey. However, I think that TRON: LEGACY has more action and characterization to me than in the original movie. The father-son relationship between Bridges and Hedlund supplies a relationship that I liked which was missing from the original movie - as well as having the relationship between Bridges program character Clu, and with Clu having a relationship with both Bridges and Hedlund. When Hedlund first meets Clu, I expected a "Luke, I am your father" type of scene. Bruce Boxleitner's program character of Tron from the original movie has very little screen time in this movie - since the movie is really about Hedlund's search for his father Bridges, rather than of Boxleitner's story. Olivia Wilde's character basically takes up Boxleitner's role in TRON: LEGACY. Wilde is very good in a fight and she also saves Hedlund a few times, even though Hedlund could also hold his own in a fight. At the beginning of the movie, there are scenes concerning Bridges company Encom and doing a product launch of a new operating system. You expect similar cut-throat business practices in the movie that the original TRON had, especially with the son of the bad guy from TRON as one of the company's designers - but once you enter the world of Tron, the movie does not return to the real world.

For those who watch the movie in 3-D - the real world in the beginning of the movie is shot in 2-D and it is only when you enter the world of Tron that the movie becomes 3-D. This is a similar technique that The Wizard of Oz used where the real world of The Wizard of Oz was in black and white and the land of Oz was in color. There are also several scenes of a fairly elegant home setting that reminds me of several scenes from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which also had an elegant hotel setting. The ending of the movie, although cute, does not exactly make sense to me scientifically given the context of the film - but if you were looking for scientific accuracy do not expect it from this movie.

Rated PG for violence. Running time: 127 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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