THE HUNGER GAMES

Lionsgate

Rated PG-13

Running time: 142 Minutes

Click below to watch The Hunger Games trailer.




In Lionsgate The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, Jennifer Lawrence, is reluctantly sent from her impoverished District of a future devastated apocalyptic America, as a Tribute to the wealthy capitol city. In what is now the new country of Panem, Lawrence becomes a participant in a deadly reality TV elimination Game show - where the winner is the last person still alive.

Based on the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the movie is a cross between the short story The Lottery by author Shirley Jackson, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Running Man, and the TV show Survivor. With TV host Stanley Tucci hosting the Games, the Games was more of a media extravaganza for the masses instead of a gladiator arena for the Tributes - especially with Lawrence being billed as "The Girl on Fire." The celebrity aspect of the show is in sharp contrast to the deadly killing spree in the second half of the movie as the Tributes target each other in this survival of the fittest conflict. While Lawrence's coal minor District Tributes were chosen by lottery, other Tributes in other Districts were training all their lives for the Games. The sycophants of the show do not seem to realize or care that the Games are in reality a punishment check for the rebellious war that happened to the country seventy-five years ago. They just want a good show to be entertained by, which is sad. The "Bread and Circuses" aspect of the Game comes from the latter days of the Roman Empire, where the government would keep the masses satisfied by providing violent and deadly entertainments for the people to watch. And having the nation being forced to watch the Game is rather Big Brotherish. When Lawrence volunteers herself in exchange for her sister Willow Shields when Shields gets chosen to be a Tribute to the Games, it was a heart-rending moment to witness Lawrence's sacrifice. This sacrifice is the beginning of Lawrence's journey through The Hunger Games. It also lead to Lawrence becoming a big sister to Tribute Amandla Stenberg during the Game.

Considering that this is a post-apocalyptic era amongst the ruins of North America, there seems to be a lot of technology in this era in contrast to the lack of food that the people have. Lawrence is forced to hunt animals for food - and has become very good with the bow and arrow as a result. Lawrence's use of the bow and arrow during the Game drove home the fact to me that the Game and the Tributes really are in the wilderness. It is implied that the rebellious war only occurred in America, so it is possible that the rest of the world was unaffected by the war and could contribute to the technology - but there is no reference to the rest of the world. Still, that is a lot of advanced technology involved that is able to manipulate an entire wilderness area that is being controlled by virtual computers. And the lack of food is more implied in the film rather than being graphic about it. I was expecting graphic hunger, so the implied hunger makes trivial the status of the real life homeless who are hungry. As a result, I am still not sure in the movie if people in society are really starving or if it is just a few people. Having producer Wes Bentley manipulate the games to force some killings, I thought was very unfair to the Tributes and is a form of violation of the amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 preventing anyone from fixing quiz shows. However, Bentley was being manipulated by the President, Donald Sutherland, to keep the people from having too much hope in Lawrence as the Games are a punishment and check against the various Districts to prevent future rebellions.

While former Hunger Games winner Woody Harrelson was a drunken, jaded mentor to Tribute Lawrence and to fellow Tribute Josh Hutcherson, it was nice to see Harrelson grow to be a true mentor and trainer to Lawrence and Hutcherson - especially to Lawrence.

While I generally liked the movie, this is also a long movie though. I felt it was taking too long to actually get to the Game once Lawrence and Hutcherson were chosen to be Tributes - and the Game was what I wanted to see when I went to see the movie in the first place. The Game was actually dramatically exciting with the Game set in the wilderness and the Tributes hunting each other, but the movie had spent quite of bit of time on the celebrity aspect, and training, of the Game before they actually got into the Game. Because of the Tributes killing each other off, you never get to know most of them as they get killed off too soon. I just barely remember a couple of their faces before they were killed off. Having a boy and a girl from each District being chosen as Tributes is rather sad, especially for Lawrence and Hutcherson, knowing that they would eventually have to kill each other in the end - which would prevent any type of friendship and alliance normally. The scene in the movie that got to me the most was the genetically enhanced wasps. I was imagining if I was thrown into that situation - suddenly attacked by wasps. Arghhh!

At the end of the movie, the people behind me were talking about the books. Since the book is part of a trilogy, Lionsgate said that the rest of the The Hunger Games The Hunger Games. From the opening box office, I expect they would be working on the next movie Catching Fire right now.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 142 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

21 JUMP STREET

Columbia Pictures and MGM Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 109 Minutes





Click below to watch the 21 Jump Street trailer.



In Columbia Pictures and MGM Pictures 21 Jump Street, former high school adversaries and incompetent rookie cops Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are transferred to the Jump Street program - where they are to become undercover high school students.

A loose sequel based on the 1980's dramatic TV show 21 Jump Street, created by Stephen J. Cannell and Patrick Hasburgh, the movie 21 Jump Street is a comedy with Hill and Tatum partnered up as undercover brothers by their Captain, Ice Cube because of their youthful looks in order to stop a synthetic drug from spreading out from the local high school into other schools being distributed by popular student dealer Dave Franco.

As a fan of the TV show, I was rather disappointed that the movie was basically a crude high school comedy, instead of a serious action drama that I was expecting - especially when the movie is dealing with hard drugs. Although the fact that the movie did make fun of the media not coming up with anything brand new and remaking old ideas was cute. However, the film is full of stereotypes and is very politically incorrect as the film makes fun of those stereotypes. With that said, the movie is a pretty funny comedy. With the film Written, Executive Produced, and Starring Jonah Hill, it makes it seem that Hill is going backward in his career in that he is doing high school comedies again, when I would much rather see him do more dramas like his baseball movie Moneyball. Although it was fun watching Hill and Tatum become brothers in this film and having them stay at home with Hill's parents. It was also fun having Hill dressed as Peter Pan which adds to a lot of jokes. Even if Tatum was the sports jock and Hill was the nerd, their roles were accidentally reversed when they go undercover - which breaks up the traditional buddy cop roles. I wish the rest of the movie was of that caliber, instead of the running joke of being able to remember the words to the Miranda Rights. Since the TV show was an ensemble show, I would have preferred Hill and Tatum working more with the other Jump Street undercover cops, like the girls, instead of just recruiting the other high school students to help them. Perhaps there will be more of an ensemble movie in the sequel, where Hill and Tatum will probably return as college students.

Having uncredited cameos with 21 Jump Street TV series stars Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise reprising their TV roles was great to see in the movie with Depp and DeLuise portraying DEA agents and adds closure to their characters from the TV series. TV series star Dustin Nguyen was shown in TV clips in the movie, while TV series star Holly Robinson Peete was the only series regular who was actually credited in the movie. IMDB lists that TV series star Richard Grieco was also in the movie, which I did not know about and I do not know where he was in the movie as I did not notice him. Not having seen the TV show on the Fox Network in years, it was great that I was able to remember the words to the theme song - which was originally sung by Robinson Peete, with backup by Depp and DeLuise - when the song played during the end credits.

Rated R for language, violence, sexual situations, drug use.  Running time: 109 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

JOHN CARTER

Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 132 Minutes


Click below to watch the trailer of John Carter of Mars.



In Walt Disney Pictures John Carter, American Civil War hero Captain John Carter from Virginia, Taylor Kitsch, is teleported through space to the planet Mars, which is in the middle of their own civil war.

Based on the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter is a combination of a space-going Tarzan who is playing Cowboys and Aliens and Avatar in a desert, although I liked John Carter better than Avatar. While I have never gotten around to reading the books by Burroughs, I was familiar with the basic John Carter story and I felt the movie was quite entertaining. Some people apparently could not follow the story - but for those who have been watching movies regularly, I think you should be able to follow the storyline as this is not a European artsy film. This film was directed by Andrew Stanton, who made the Toy Story movies.

While trying to escape from being conscripted into the U.S. Army by Colonel Bryan Cranston for being a hero in the Confederate States Army, Kitsch finds a mysterious secret cave where he encounters a dangerous stranger with a mysterious medallion - a medallion which transports Kitsch to the planet Mars. On Mars, otherwise known as the planet Barsoom, Kitsch is able to leap incredible heights in the lighter gravity of Barsoom. As a result of his leaping, Kitsch impresses the local green Martian leader Willem Dafoe - who wants to make Kitsch in what is basically Dafoe's white ape warrior. Soon airships approach their territory as the airships have an aerial battle and Kitsch encounters red humanoid Barsoomian Princess Lynn Collins. Collins was using her airship to escape from marrying the diabolical Prince Dominic West - whose wedding Collins father Ciarán Hinds had arranged between Collins and West in order to try to keep the peace between their two cities. Dynamic in the martial arts as well as intelligent, Collins soon convinces Kitsch to stop his quest to return home to Earth and to fight for her people against West and the strange religious Martians like Mark Strong that are controlling West.

Various versions of John Carter have been in development since the 1930's and it is only until now that a major movie of John Carter has been made. What is significant is that now in the year 2012, it is the centennial of the character's first appearance from a magazine serial from 1912 which was originally titled as Under the Moons of Mars in the pulp magazine The All-Story. The serial was retitled as A Princess of Mars when the serial was published as a hardcover. I remember reading a movie outline of John Carter of Mars by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio back in the 80's and I was waiting for years for their screenplay to be made. Unfortunately, part of the delay was for the technology to develop enough to render the Martian biology's. While various elements of the movie may have been seen in movies before, a lot of those elements have had their origins from Edgar Rice Burroughs and the John Carter books. The film is also more PC than the original books with Collins being clothed, instead of just wearing jewelry, and the red Martians having red tattoos instead of being red people. Since this was an origin film, John Carter did not become John Carter of Mars until the last few minutes of the movie. Future sequels will then supposedly be titled John Carter of Mars. Of course, having the movie just called John Carter is very enigmatic for people who do not know who he was - which made me upset that they had dropped the of Mars from the title. Although I understood artistically why they did that. From a Marketing point of view, dropping the of Mars from the title killed their audience - especially with the young people who have never heard of John Carter. A friend of mine, who goes to the movies a lot, asked me "what is John Carter?" And this is a film that had commercials everywhere.

What I thought was cute in this movie, aside from Kitsch's loyal Martian dog Woola, was that Edgar Rice Burroughs, Daryl Sabara, was used as a character in the movie as Kitsch's nephew - who was given a journal of Kitsch's adventures on Barsoom. Sabara reading Kitsch's adventures from the journal leads into the movie, and the story of John Carter. Implying that Edgar Rice Burroughs was inspired to write John Carter books after reading about Carter's adventures in Carter's journal is rather cute. The credits were basically graphic images of the pages of the journal and of Kitsch's maps of his worldwide quests to find a way to return to Barsoom. Too bad I have not seen any cute toys about the Martian dog Woola in the stores and fast food places.

At the end of the movie, at my screening, people applauded. What was touching, during the end credits, was a dedication of the movie to the Memory of Steve Jobs, an Inspiration to Us All. The film was written and directed by Pixar Animation Studio's Andrew Stanton, of which John Carter is Stanton's live-action debut. The animation studio Pixar was Co-Founded by Jobs, of which the studio Pixar was purchased by the Walt Disney Studios, so the dedication was quite appropriate.

Click below to watch another trailer of John Carter of Mars.



Click below to watch the fan-made trailer of John Carter of Mars.



Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 132 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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