DESPICABLE ME 2

Universal Pictures

Rated PG

Running time: 98 Minutes



Click below to watch the Despicable Me 2 movie trailer.



In Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me 2, Gru, Steve Carell, and the girls Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, and Elsie Fisher, return to save the world.

This sequel to Despicable Me is Illumination Entertainment's first sequel and it's longest film as of 2013. After his daughter's birthday party, Gru/Carell is dragged in to the Anti-Villain League by Kristen Wiig to find out who stole a secret laboratory and to stop the villain from using the secret monstrous mutagen the laboratory was developing to take over the world. Steve Carell, Russell Brand, and Miranda Cosgrove reprise their roles - while Kristen Wiig returns, this time portraying agent Lucy Wilde, as well as Ken Jeong returning portraying Floyd Eagle-san.

I like this film better than the original Despicable Me - probably because Gru/Carell is a real single father this time now, as well as being brought into the game to become a hero out to save the world by the Anti-Villain League with cool cars, gadgets, and weapons. Gru is much more lovable to me, despite his women problems with his neighbor Nasim Pedrad trying to fix him up. The girls obviously love and idolize Gru/Carell, although young Fisher also wants a mother. The opening shot if Illumination Entertainment's logo and the minion Pierre Coffin prepared me to be in the just the right silly mood for watching Despicable Me 2. This is an animated James Bond film - as opposed to Monster's University's animated Revenge of the Nerds and much more enjoyable to me, probably because the story is more of a Hero's Journey. I also liked Gru's/Carrell's over protectiveness of his daughter Cosgrove from a boy, Moises Arias and his father's Benjamin Bratt's zealousness at the local mall.

As much as I love the minions in both this film and the last Despicable Me, the minions would have been better if there were only three or four minions where you can actually get to know them, instead of an army of minions. When you see the two or three minions at once, you are not sure if these are the same minions that you had seen before or are completely different minions. While the hundreds of minions, or maybe thousands of minions, are a major plot point - I would have preferred three or four main leader minions and an entire sub race of other minions that look different from them that the main minions managed. I am not sure if I like the one-eyed minion or not, but I am looking forward to the new Minions movie.

There were lots of musical numbers in the movie - including music from the Village People's YMCA, as well as Pharrell Williams Happy.

During the end credits, the minions audition for new minions for the new Minions movie. I am sure this sequence would have looked great in 3D. Unfortunately I saw the movie in 2D, but the animation still looked great.

Rated PG for mild violence. Running time: 98 Minutes.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Despicable Me 2.



Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.
 Pancho's Movie Reviews

 

WHITE HOUSE DOWN

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 131 Minutes



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In Columbia Pictures White House Down, U.S. Capitol Police officer and Secret Service candidate Channing Tatum winds up protecting the President of the United States Jamie Foxx when terrorists invade The White House.

This movie White House Down Directed by Roland Emmerich is basically the same movie as Olympus Has Fallen, but White House Down is sillier than Olympus. That said, there were a few things that I did like about White House Down that I wish were in Olympus Has Fallen. These things were mostly tactical in nature, which made the takeover of The White House even more unbelievable in White House Down. There were less Secret Service agents in this movie than in Olympus and also the Marine Presidential Guard disappeared as in Olympus Has Fallen. Although I did like the fact that the movie went more into the history of The White House in White House Down, like the burning of the White House.

I did not think I could accept Jamie Foxx as the President, but as the movie went along, Foxx did become more and more Presidential to me. There was still a little silliness involved, but Foxx seemed very Presidential. I liked that he was trying to negotiate a controversial Peace Treaty between the various allied countries in the Mid-East. I had actually liked the relationship that had developed between Tatum and Foxx during the movie. I also liked the fact that the movie played up the Presidential Line of Succession more than the movies have had in other Presidential movies.

Tatum having a daughter Joey King added a sympathy factor for Tatum as he tries to relate to his estranged daughter King with ticket passes to the White House since King's parents Tatum and her mother Rachelle Lafevre are no longer together. Hiding his disastrous Secret Service interview conducted with former college acquaintance Maggie Gyllenhaal from King was rather sad to see, although Gyllenhaal never seemed like a strong enough character to me. King eventually became a cute kid in the movie instead of the strong political blogger with videos on YouTube that King had started out to be. This resulted in Tatum and King becoming a sugary sappy father and daughter.

I liked Barbara Williams attitude about what her husband, the Head of the Presidential Protective Detail James Woods, is doing in the movie.

Having Jason Clarke from Zero Dark Thirty added a certain political credible continuity as an ex-Delta Force operative, although Clarke looks a little funny to me for me to take him too serious in such paramilitary movies.

Computer hacker Jimmi Simpson hacking into the defense system seemed more of a MacGuffin to me than being a major plot line of the movie. Nicolas Wright as the White House Tour Guide I did like in the movie.

The TV news crews were uneven in their gathering of news, but sadly can be the case - especially during a big event such as blowing up the White House.

I liked the idea of "The Beast" - the Presidential State Car - but that eventually became a silly car chase. That could have been great as a ground version of Air Force One. I look forward to someone making a movie about Ground Force One.

The small audience I saw White House Down with actually enjoyed the movie, so if you just turn your brain off and sit back and let it happen as an action movie, you can have a good time.

Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 131 Minutes.

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Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews


 

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

Walt Disney Pictures

Rated G

Running time: 104 Minutes



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In Walt Disney Pictures Monsters University, before Mike - Billy Crystal - and Sulley - John Goodman - were Incorporated scarers, they had to go to school.

This film is the first prequel for Pixar. In this prequel to Monsters Inc. - a G Rated version of Revenge of the Nerds - before they were famous, Mike/Crystal and Sulley/Goodman are rival scare major students competing to be the best scarer during the Scare Games.

Several actors return to reprise their characters including Steve Buscemi, Bob Peterson, and John Ratzenberger.

I thought it was quite appropriate that the scariest monster to me in this academic setting was the Dean of the school, Helen Mirren. I thought the movie was cute - although I liked Monsters Inc. better, probably because of the relationship that Mike/Crystal and Sulley/Goodman were having with the human child Boo - Mary Gibbs - in the first movie. Mike/Crystal and Sulley's/Goodman's relationships with Oozma Kappa did not have the same emotional relationship to me, even with the big Sulley/Goodman going up against Oozma Kappa. Although I did like little Mike's/Crystal's tutoring of Oozma Kappa.

I was with my nieces, so we left when the credits started. As a result, I missed the fact that there is a scene during the end credits.

Monsters University also had the premier of the Pixar short film The Blue Umbrella which I thought was a really cute relationship film.

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Rated G with mild violence. Running time: 104 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews


 

MAN OF STEEL

Warner Bros.

Running time: 1:43 Minutes

Rated PG-13



Click below to watch the Man of Steel movie trailer.




In Warner Bros. Man of Steel, Jor-El - Russell Crowe - and his wife Lara Lor-Van - Ayelet Zurer - send off their baby boy Kal-El from their doomed planet of Krypton to the planet Earth - where he grows up to be the outcast hero Superman, Henry Cavill.

Directed by Zack Snyder, and Written and Produced by Christopher Nolan, with Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Man of Steel is a new rebooted dark version of Superman and Superman II put together in one movie. This is not the upbeat Truth, Justice, and the American Way Superman with a sappy love story. However, most of the symbols concerning Superman are in this movie - including references to the TV series Smallville. Released in 2013 - the 75th Anniversary of the creation of Siegel's & Shuster's Superman - Man of Steel is the story of Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Kal-El - with Dylan Sprayberry and Cooper Timberline portraying the young Clark Kent at various ages - being a bullied outcast struggling with and hiding his superhuman abilities from people.

Clark Kent's/Kal-El's/Cavill's parents Russell Crowe, Ayelet Zurer, as Kal-El's Kryptonian scientific parents, and  Kevin Costner, and Diane Lane as Clark Kent's human farming parents home in Kansas were great strong people. These people had to be strong people in order to develop the man who will eventually become known Superman, especially from Lane and Costner. Although I wish there were more scenes with Zurer. Nevertheless, you can especially feel the love coming from Costner and Lane for Kal-El/Cavill.

I liked how the U.S. Military was handled in the movie. This is how I believe the military would respond if there really was an alien invasion. There were a lot of military units in the credits that were thanked for their participation in the movie.

I also liked the relationship between Kal-El/Cavill and Lois Lane/Amy Adams. This was not a sappy love story, but a professional client/friendship relationship. Kal-El/Cavill was more concerned about his place among humans than a relationship with Lane/Adams. Although I regret that Lane/Adams did not have enough of the dramatic reporter-like scenes that shows that she is an award-winning reporter, this was more than in the previous Superman movie. Likewise Perry White/Laurence Fishburne was not used enough as the City Editor of the Daily Planet. White/Fishburne was used mostly as a victim.

The ending of the movie reminded me of the ending of The Avengers, especially the scenes in The Avengers of The Hulk battling Loki. I felt that the battles at the end of the movie of Man of Steel were a little too long and I was saying to myself, "Okay. I've seen enough of the battles. Let's get to the end of the movie."

I started to sympathise with General Zod - Michael Shannon - by the end of the movie. Zod/Shannon is still the obsessed bad guy of the movie searching for Kal El/Cavill, but at least I understood Zod/Shannon and his reasons. As the Kryptonians go wild looking for Kal El/Cavill, there were some plot points in the story that bothered me, until they were solved in a roundabout flashback way. Other flashbacks in the movie were handled better. It was sad that in the beginning of the movie - while Krypton is dying - the Kryptonian people were at war, following a military coup.

With Clark Kent's/Cavill's upbringing, it was hard to believe that Clark Kent/Kal-El had no regret when he and the Kryptonians started battling and causing damage, especially in a small town. During the various battles, you see the crowds running away but never hurt or killed. While those are implied, especially with buildings and skyscrapers collapsing in Metropolis, there is no obvious repercussions of the battles aside from all the damage. There was criticism that the people in general would not trust this Superman who had caused all this damage, despite his good intentions. He would not be considered and American idol and because of this First Contact situation, I could see the people of Earth giving up Superman to the Kryptonians and I could feel for Kal-El's/Cavill's forsakeness. And with references and comparisons to Jesus Christ, I could imagine Christ being treated the same way if Christ suddenly showed up today. With the millions of dollars of damage caused by their battles, it made me hope of a company like Marvel Comics Damage Control to handle all the rebuilding of the rubble.

There were several commercials in the theater before the movie played that had the Man of Steel theme. I had mixed feelings about that. While I liked the Man of Steel themes in the commercials just before the movie, I was uncomfortable with seeing those commercials in the theater. It made the movie feel too commercialized, especially when the showing was running late. I am not sure if running late is a new trend for movie theaters, or was just for that particular theater. The commercials just rather frustrated me as I wanted to see the movie and I could have gone for refreshments if I knew the movie was running late.

Because the movie was so dark, it made me long to see Superbman - The Other Movie again produced by my Orange Coast College film student colleagues Vern Dietsche and Dave Teubner for a good laugh.

I saw Man of Steel at a late show, and as I was leaving the fairly empty mall - a security guard asked me, "Did you come from the movies?" "Yes." "What did you see?" "Man of Steel." "I'm going to see that tomorrow! Is it good?" "Yes it is, but it is a dark movie."

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 1:43 Minutes.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Man of Steel.



Click below to watch the final movie trailer of Man of Steel.



Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews