RED DAWN

FilmDistrict/Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer

Rated PG-13

Running time: 114 Minutes

 

 Click below to watch the Red Dawn trailer.

 

In FilmDistrict's/Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's Red Dawn, high schoolers must defend themselves and their home - when America gets invaded by North Korea.

In a remake of 1984's Red Dawn, this film starts out with the high school football game with Josh Peck of the Wolverines trying to prove himself during the game to his Police Sergeant father Brett Cullen and his veteran Marine brother home on leave, Chris Hemsworth. When North Korea invades their hometown, Cullen sends the motherless Peck and Hemsworth off to their cabin in the woods for safety and to eventually make war with the Korean troops.

I have not seen the original Red Dawn since it first came out in 1984, but from what I remember I think that the new Red Dawn is a better film than the original and seems more of a regular fun action film. I enjoyed the action in this movie. With stars from current TV shows like Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Alyssa Diaz, Edwin Hodge and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, I am sure the young audience can relate to these characters like my generation related to the young stars like Charlie Sheen of the original Red Dawn. The feel was very much like The Hunger Games and the Twilight saga movies, as well as the V TV series, when the teens are out training with the various guns and developing their fighting skills in the woods, especially with Josh Hutcherson from The Hunger Games as one of the teenagers. I liked the family aspect of the movie between the brothers and their relationship, and how all the other Wolverines had family of some kind or another as well.

The opening montage sets up the movie with news clips, including clips of President Barack Obama and Senator Hilary Clinton of the escalating tension from North Korea and it's military and the technological and economic vulnerabilities of America, especially the vulnerability to a new kind of weapon. While the Koreans tried to hunt down the Wolverines, the fact that the Koreans do not take any retaliation against the population, or at least the prisoners located at the stadium for the Wolverines actions was illogical to me.

I have always wondered - both back in the 80's and now - how it would be if my high school, Estancia High School, was the one that was involved in the movie. Our mascot, the Eagles, would have been more patriotic mascot symbol for the city to rally around against the North Korean army as the kids that I went to  high school with fight the Koreans. I can imagine everyone crying out Eagles!

Originally the film was made in 2009 and was supposed to be released in 2010, keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we are in. However, due to the financial difficulties of MGM, the released was pushed back to 2012. As a result, the enemy was supposed to been China, which would have been logical, given their resources - but with the opening up of Chinese availability of Western products, MGM wanted the Chinese box office, all references to China was changed during post production and computer graphics to make the enemy North Korea. With backing from another source, it made it more believable that North Korea could pull off such an invasion. With both Chinese and North Koreans being Asian, it was a simple matter of changing the logos and flags through CGI. With Chris Hemsworth as the leader of the Wolverines, the movie's late release works to the movie's advantage as Hemsworth is a bigger name as an action star now.

Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 114 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.
 

LINCOLN

Twentieth-Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 150 Minutes




Click below to watch the Lincoln trailer.



In Twentieth-Century Fox's Lincoln, United States President Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis, tries to get the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed in Congress to abolish slavery in this country as the American Civil War continues to rage.

Produced and Directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the film covers the final four months of Lincoln's life in 1865. This was a tour de force for Daniel Day-Lewis. For an Englishman, Day-Lewis had quite a presence as the American President Lincoln. I loved it when Lincoln/Day-Lewis started telling his stories. One of my favorite scenes was where Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Bruce McGill, complains that Lincoln/Day-Lewis is going to tell another one of his stories again and walks out as Day-Lewis tells his story. Sally Field's performance as Lincoln's wife Mary Todd Lincoln did not make me feel that she was the emotionally difficult woman that history had made her out to be, but just as a concerned wife and mother - especially when her oldest son Robert Todd Lincoln, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, wants to go enlist into the Army. She is just concerned about her family.

While there were two issues during Lincoln's Presidency, the main story in the movie was the campaign for the necessary Democratic votes in Congress for the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the abolition of slavery in America as a prelude to ending the Civil War. It is curious that Lincoln/Day-Lewis offered Federal jobs in his second term to the various Democratic congressmen in exchange for voting for the Amendment. There were heated debates on both sides in Congress, and even debates within his own cabinet, while Lincoln's people try to secure the votes necessary to pass the Amendment. There was even the joke about eventually giving women the right to vote, to the horror of everyone. During the vote for the Amendment, the names were changed on those in the United States House of Representatives who voted No on the Amendment to spare the family descendants of these representatives. There were several statements to the effect that the world is watching them, but you saw no actual scenes of the outside world. The scenes were totally focused on the American events. It is curious that I have always thought that it was the Democrats that supported the Amendment instead of the Republicans.

There was a battle scene at the beginning of the movie which to me was the most graphic Civil War battle scene I have ever seen, due to the fact that the fighting was basically hand to hand instead of people shooting at each other across a field. Half of the soldiers fighting in the scene were black. This battle scene was basically the only battle scene in the movie, despite what the trailer may imply - as the rest of the movie was about the politics of the 13th Amendment and the little known peace agreement between the Union and the Confederacy. This scene makes me incredibly sad as I realize that these are Americans fighting Americans.

The theme of the movie was Euclid's theory - which Lincoln/Day-Lewis spoke of - which is basically "Things which equal the same thing also equal one another." That was the basis of abolishing slavery. That was like a light bulb for me when Day-Lewis spoke of this. To think of the black people as unequal in the eyes of God was very prejudiced. Although the slaves in the movie acted and were treated more like servants rather than slaves doing drudge work, especially when there were black people for Lincoln/Day-Lewis and Sally Field. Although the pictures of black children of which their son Tad Lincoln, Gulliver McGrath, had with prices on their pictures brought home the idea of slavery. Tommy Lee Jones was great as Republican Abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. There was a scene at the end of the movie that made me understand Thaddeus Stevens/Jones better.

This was a long movie, especially with the long speeches at the beginning of the movie. I know that at least one couple left at the end of the voting for the 13th Amendment - and there was still the rest of the story of Lincoln to be told. The long speeches in the beginning made it difficult for me to concentrate as there was too much information being thrown at me and I was ready to fall asleep, but visually the movie was great under Spielberg's direction. There was a stylistic dream sequence in the beginning of the movie of a style that I have not really seen before. Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address in the beginning of the movie was too Hollywood for me for it to be believable, but it was a nice idea. With all the historical research that was involved, as the end credits indicated of all the museums and archives that were listed,  it makes you wonder how much has been done for Hollywood's sake and how much in depth history has been left out.

I saw the movie at a Black Friday matinee in it's second week. I just realized, it seemed rather appropriate to see it on that day. The theater was full with a more mature audience than the young people who normally go to the movies. At the end of the movie, everyone applauded - and where normally people immediately leave after a movie, there were several people staying behind and just talking about the movie while the end credits rolled. It felt more like a social event. When the movie was over, there was a line outside the door.

Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 150 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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TAKEN 2

Twentieth Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 92 Minutes

 

Click below to watch the Taken 2 trailer.



In Twentieth Century Fox's Taken 2, retired CIA operative Liam Neeson is on a business vacation trip in Istanbul with his wife Famke Jansson and daughter Maggie Grace - when Neeson and Jansson get kidnapped by the father of the man who had kidnapped Maggie earlier.

In this sequel to Taken, I felt the movie was uneven. This seems not surprising as the work of writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen are uneven. I did not see the original movie, but while the father Rade Serbedzija was good as the vengeful father targeting Neeson and getting revenge for the death of Serbedzija's son and the rest of the village gang involved with the kidnapping of Grace to use her for human prostitution in the first Taken movie - some of the plot points were totally unbelievable, mostly dealing with Neeson and Jansson. The scenes at home with Grace's driving test were nice and ordinary - but once Neeson and Jansson were kidnapped, it started to get a little like an ordinary action film and a little illogical. I did like the use of the Marines at the U.S. Embassy, however. I felt that they were more realistically used in the movie than in Argo. Seeing Grace being determined to go after her kidnapped parents from her hotel was great to see. Luc Besson claims that this is the last Taken movie.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 92 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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FLIGHT

Paramount Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 138 Minutes



Click below to watch the Flight trailer.



In Paramount Pictures Flight, after flying through a turbulant storm - a drunken airline pilot Denzel Washington makes a miraculous crash landing with his passenger airliner.

Produced and Directed by Robert Zemeckis, in his first R rated film since Used Cars, this is a tour-de-force performance by Denzel Washington. Similar to real-life events, the focus of the movie really is on Washington and his situation rather than on most anything else in the movie. Just as the rough weather was rougher than I thought it would be, the movie is much more dramatic than what the trailer makes it out to be. I could see an Oscar nomination for Washington for this role. With the media staking out his home and the National Transportation Safety Bureau, NTSB, hearing for the plane crash headed by Melissa Leo after him, Washington is in for a rough ride - with the possibility of going to jail. It is a shame that he has this situation as after such an incredible feat to save the plane because Washington, for a time, is called a real American hero for his relevant skills as a pilot. Even with the help of his airlines collegue Bruce Greenwood, his lawyer Don Cheadle, and his new girlfriend, addict Kelly Reilly, Washington is in for a rough time. Even being sequestered in a hotel does not help him. It is sad that it is a tradition that passengers are called souls by the flight crew. John Goodman was a lot of fun as Washington's hippie best friend.

Rated R for alcohol and drug abuse, nudity, language, smoking. Running time: 138 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews


 

SKYFALL

Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer

Rated PG-13

Running time: 143 Minutes



Click below to watch the Skyfall trailer.



In Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's Skyfall, based on Ian Fleming's James Bond series, Daniel Craig as James Bond must protect M, Judi Dench, from becoming the victim of blond terrorist Javier Bardem.

With 2012 as the Fiftieth Anniversary of James Bond films, the relocation of MI6 headquarters to The Churchill Bunker System, and adding several new characters to the movie like Naomie Harris as intelligence officers being introduced in Skyfall - the movie will take the James Bond films into a new generation.

After Craig/Bond has been injured on an assignment to retrieve a computer drive, Dench comes under fire politically from Ralph Fiennes and Parliament when the drive was lost - as the drive contains a list of undercover agents embedded into terrorist organizations around the world. Watching an ousted agent being executed because his identity was released was rather sad. It was fortunate Craig was not on the list. Dench is also pursued by Bardem from Dench's past and wants revenge against her, targeting her office in one attack.

Dench finally gets to act in a Bond film as half of the movie is about her, thus making Dench one of the Bond girls. I have always felt that the Bond movies were wasting Dench's talents and this movie more than makes up for it. In Skyfall, Dench acts more like a Mother/authority figure to Craig/Bond as the movie explores their relationship. Young Ben Whishaw as the new Quartermaster is appropriately young and geeky enough to be the new Q. With more and more of technology going into information technology, as well as being more of a realistic film, there seems to be less need for gadgets in the field. As is tradition, Bond's gadgets are basically only used once in the movie and these are basically essential gadgets - like Bond's traditional Walther PPK gun, this time a PPK/S gun with palm-print encoding is given to Craig/Bond. The move toward signals intelligence espionage is a major issue for MI6 amongst Dench's inquiry after the lost of several human agents - as well as MI6 being hacked. But to paraphrase Dench, human intelligence is needed to fight in the darkness. While there are typical action chase scenes, having the first responders respond to terrorist aspect in London - such as the London Tube - gave rise to that fact of terrorism. The terrorism gives a more realistic feel - especially with real life newscasters from CNN and the BBC reporting on it - to the movie than other films in the Bond series.

While Craig drove several cars and motorcycles in Skyfall - it was great to see Bond's Aston-Martin DB5 car again, referring to Bond's roots as well as hearing the Bond music sting when you see the Aston-Martin, just as Skyfall refers to Bond's roots. With the first James Bond played by Scotsman Sean Connery - and with Ian Fleming's family once owning a Scottish estate, and Fleming loving the countryside of Scotland - having orphan Bond having Scottish roots seemed quite appropriate for a United Kingdom series. It was also nice knowing the names of Bond's parents. Skyfall is the third film in the unofficial trilogy of Bond's ancestry. As a tribute to the late Bond music composer John Barry, Judi Dench's house in the movie was the home of John Barry. It is funny that Fiennes is now part of two big franchise films, Harry Potter and James Bond. It was also cool to see the Agusta Westland Merlin AW101 helicopter used during the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremonies with Daniel Craig and the Queen Elizabeth II of England and their Skyfall used in the movie Skyfall.

With Craig/Bond being injured, the movie plays up to the fact both medically and physically that he is not up to the role of being a 00 agent physically as he was before - with Fiennes questioning Craig's/Bond's fitness. This ties into Craig aging as Bond, in that he may not be able to physically play the role of Bond much longer. There is also a scene where Craig/Bond, recovering his health, is having a drinking contest with a scorpion. I could barely watch this scene because of the scorpion - especially when my mother was bitten by a scorpion when she was a teenager, and her leg is still swollen by it.

Skyfall is a non Ian Fleming James Bond title used for a James Bond film. As there are very few Bond titles left, I would not be surprised if the producers start using original titles for the start of the next 50 years of Bond movies. As it is, Skyfall does not connect to the previous Daniel Craig Bond films.

The film was influenced by the Batman Dark Knight series, and this was most obvious to me during some of the music score. Both films are very complicated films, although there were a couple of plot points in Skyfall that did not make sense. The Asian element of Skyfall is the most obvious element of being opposite of the English world, especially since Shanghai is basically on the opposite side of the world to London.

The opening title credits sequence, while connected to the themes and story of the movie, is perhaps the darkest Bond title sequence that I have ever seen. The title sequence was very macabre and made me think that Skyfall was going to be a voodoo movie like Live and Let Die.

As stated during the end credits -

Bond Will Return.

Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual situations, language. Running time: 143 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews