INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE

20th Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 120 minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Independence Day: Resurgence on YouTube.




In Twentieth Century Fox's Independence Day: Resurgence, it has been 20 years since the war of 1996, but a distress signal had been sent out - and the aliens are coming back.

In the sequel to Independence Day, Produced, Written, and Directed by Roland Emmerich and based on Characters created by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, it has been 20 years since the alien war of 1996. Humanity has combined their technology with the alien's technology to help improve the defense of Earth - but the aliens have responded to a distress signal from a mothership from the previous war, and have returned to Earth in greater numbers.

While the first movie seemed more of a contemporary movie - Independence Day: Resurgence, the first movie sequel as of 2016 to be released twenty years after the original movie, is set in the present day but seems more of a science fiction film than the first one with all of the alien technology involved as well as having a huge base on the moon. However, Resurgence seemed less silly to me then the original Independence Day. Aside from one character that eventually became comic relief, the main silliness to me was what looks like an unintentional pokemon referance. The film also reminds me of the movie Starship Troopers.

This movie is a combination of old, as well as a new generation of heroes Maika Monroe, Jessie T. Usher, Liam Hemsworth, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Angelababy, and Sela Ward as these characters work together as an international generation of heroes in order to fight off an even bigger alien invasion on Independence Day. While the movie seemed bigger, there did not seem to me to have as many powerful dramatic scenes in this movie as the first movie had. For political reasons there were certain landmarks that were not depicted destroyed during the movie.

Some of the background of the movie might be a little confusing. A lot of the background is explained in the prequel novel Independence Day: Crucible, which is like required reading if you want to understand what happened in between the two movies, as well as understand the references that Resurgence had made.

A lot of the stars from the first movie Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Vivica A. Fox, John Storey, and Brent Spiner reprised their roles in this one and were like mentors to the new generation. Will Smith is not in this movie, aside from a couple of pictures, and while there were occasional references to Smith - there was no memorable scene at least to me where they explained what happened to him. That was explained in the book Crucible. Usher as Smith's adopted son in the movie had big shoes to fill as he leads the new generation of fighter pilots against the aliens. Former President Bill Pullman, despite his aging abilities, is still a leader in this movie.

Once again the movie spent a lot of time at Area 51, which in a way ties the movie back to the original Independence Day.  It also explained how Brent Spiner's character returned for this movie. The movie also spends some time at Cheyenne Mountain with President Sela Ward as they lead the attack against the aliens.

There was a cameo with Robert Loggia who reprised his role in this movie, his final film role. The movie was Dedicated to Robert Loggia during the credits.

I love that they created a website for the movie warof1996.com

The movie sets up the sequel Independence Day 3.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Independence Day: Resurgence from YouTube.



Click below to watch the Superbowl TV spot of Independence Day: Resurgence from YouTube.



Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 120 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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DEADPOOL

Twentieth Century Fox

Rated R

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Deadpool from YouTube.
 

In Twentieth Century Fox's Deadpool, God's Perfect Idiot, mercenary superhero Ryan Reynolds goes after a British villain Ed Skrein who nearly destroyed Reynolds life and face and kidnapped his fiancee, the hot chick, Morena Baccarin.

THIS IS AN R RATED MOVIE - DO NOT BRING YOUR KIDS as there is graphic violence and big boy curse words throughout the movie, as well as sex and nudity. This is a different kind of superhero story, and was always intended to be an R movie. Although, surprisingly there is not as much sex and nudity as I was expecting given the hype that I was exposed to. But there is genuine love that grew between Baccarin and Reynolds and in a sense this is the driving force behind the movie. Most of the graphic violence comes from Deadpool's use of his katana swords. What's great is that computer generated graphic test footage was incorporated into the movie and not just used as a gimmick to sell the movie to the studio.

Based on the Marvel Comics character created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicienza, and as of February 2016, is released 25 years after his first appearance in New Mutants #98, the Merc with a Mouth Deadpool is an antihero with moral ambiguity who constantly breaks the "fourth wall" and talks to the audience as he goes about fighting the bad guys looking for Skrein and Skrein's henchwoman Gina Carano/Angel Dust. While the movie is marketed as a comedy - there is a lot more drama in the movie Deadpool than I had expected, similar to the movie Ted which also was a comedy but had a lot of drama to that movie. Most of the drama dealt with Baccarin's relationship with Reynolds and his developing cancer. This is a tour de force performance for Reynolds, especially as he had spearheaded the making of the movie.

The first half of the movie goes back and forth between the present day of Reynolds searching for Skrein so that Skrein can cure Reynolds of his disfigurement, and the origin story of former special forces operative Reynolds/Deadpool - who was trying to find a cure for his terminal cancer. After the movie gets caught up, Deadpool is a fairly straightforward superhero film.

With the creation of Deadpool by supposedly the same secret organization who created Wolverine - at least in the comics - both characters have mutant healing factors. With the promise of a cure, and abilities most men would only dream of, Deadpool's creation cured his cancer - but permanently disfigured him and messed up his relationship with Baccarin. The movie Deadpool is basically the eight X-Men film to be done - especially with a CGI character Stefan Kapicic as Colossus, as well as having a moody teen Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead as the only two X-Men shown in the movie that is trying to recruit Deadpool. This is also the first X-Men related movie where Wolverine does not make an appearance. Wolverine was originally supposed to have a cameo, but was cut from the movie. Pictures of Hugh Jackman, who played Wolverine, however do appear in the movie. The movie also has no relationship to the previous Deadpool appearance in the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Deadpool's elderly blind woman roommate Leslie Uggams and Deadpool's best friend T.J. Miller were also good in the movie.

For Stan Lee fans, a gratuitous cameo is in the middle of the movie in a strip club.

There are two after credits scenes, which teases Deadpool 2 - with a major X-Men/Deadpool character to be introduced when it gets made. I am also looking forward for Monica Baccarin to becoming the mutant Copycat in a future movie, which was sort of teased in that Baccarin played a lot of roles. Both the opening credits and the closing credits of Deadpool are very creative and are indicative of the type of movie Deadpool is, as well as the music for the opening credits and the closing credits.

The movie broke several box office records for an R-Rated movie, including the first R-Rated movie to open above $100 million at the US Box office. This is especially of interest as Deadpool was made on a smaller budget than a regular superhero movie.

Rated R for graphic violence, graphic language, sexual situations, nudity, and drug use. Running time: 108 Minutes.

Click below to watch an R-Rated review of Deadpool from YouTube.



Click below to watch the comic movie trailer of Deadpool from YouTube.



Click below to watch the romantic movie trailer of Deadpool from YouTube.



Pancho
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STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 135 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Star Wars: The Force Awakens from YouTube.
 

In Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the old generation meets the new in this Star Wars sequel.

The seventh installment of the Star Wars series, the movie takes place thirty years after Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - and released thirty-two years after Return of the Jedi, thirty-eight years after Star Wars: A New Hope. Produced, Written, along with Lawrence Kasdan, and Directed by J.J. Abrams, Based on Characters Created by George Lucas, this is a worthy successor to the Star Wars legacy and the first of a new trilogy. With the transition of Lucasfilm over to Disney, Lucas stated that this was a way to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. The movie has all the elements of a Star Wars film including the original cast and I felt that the movie has more action and more story in this movie than in the other movies. I think that is mainly because, not only does the movie have the feeling of the original trilogy, the movie also has the feeling of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Thirty years after Return of the Jedi - Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill, the last Jedi has disappeared. The First Order has risen from the fallen Galactic Empire seeks to eliminate Luke/Hamill and the Republic. The Resistance, led by Luke's twin Sister Leia Organa/Carrie Fisher opposes The First Order while looking for Luke/Hamill.

Meanwhile, former stormtrooper Finn/John Boyega escapes the First Order with the help of pilot Poe Dameron/Oscar Isaac and crash on a desert planet - where Finn meets scavenger Rey/Daisy Ridley as they continue to escape from the First Order with the help of Han Solo/Harrison Ford and get to the Resistance with a map to find Luke/Hamill.

I saw this movie at a 9:00 am Saturday showing opening weekend and the theater was packed. The audience reacted positively to the movie and cheered when the Star Wars logo appeared. They also cheered when Han Solo/Harrison Ford as well as the Millennium Falcon appeared. While the original cast appeared in the movie, the movie definitely is the film of the new generation - Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac. Nonetheless, Harrison Ford received top billing in the movie - his first time for a Star Wars film, as well as being the first non-Jedi character to be credited first in the series.

It was wonderful to hear John Williams music during the opening title crawl. I knew I was finally watching a Star Wars movie after all these years when I heard the music. Not only does the movie has new music like Rey's theme, but the movie also uses familiar music like Luke's theme. Just hearing the full 90 piece orchestra and 24-voice men's chorus made me feel like a teenager again experiencing a Star Wars movie. There were times where I teared up a little during the movie as well as yelling YES during some of the scenes.

The aerial battles and the ground battles were incredible for me and felt more realistic when done on planet as compared to being done out in space. Watching in 3D - while I blinked a couple of times with debris flying out at me - at times the aerial and space battles felt like watching a video game to me. The stormtroopers were more ruthless and deadly than in the previous movies, especially one particular stormtrooper. I am looking forward to how the filmmakers are going to treat Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is coming out in 2016 and is supposed to be more of a war movie than a space movie.

There are more new aliens, although most of them were not major characters. The movie does have some subtitles for an alien language that was spoken.

The droid BB-8 is an actual droid created by Disney Research and not CGI and seven different BB units were used in the film with the actors. It was wonderful to see BB-8 in action and definitely had a personality and felt like the new R2-D2 for the movie. The movie used more practical miniature models and real locations rather than CGI to make it aesthetically closer to the original trilogy. Interestingly enough, at $200 million dollars, this is the highest budgeted Star Wars film so far.

While this is the second Star Wars film that is released in IMAX, this is the first film using IMAX cameras on some scenes during filming. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is being shown on every IMAX screen in North America for four straight weeks.

By the time the movie was over, you definitely get the feeling that there will be more stories to tell and more movies - and it has been announced that everyone will be back for the sequel, Star Wars: Episode VIII.

At the end of the movie the audience applauded.

J.J. Abrams Director's credit as with all the other credits appeared at the end of the movie, just like in all of the other Star Wars movies.

At $100 million, Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke the record for pre-sales, breaking the previous pre-sale record holder The Dark Knight Rises three times over which had $25 million in pre-sales as well as initially crashing the ticket selling websites after starting ticket sales. It also had a record breaking $57 million from Thursday night "previews" and the first film to gross more than $100,million in a "single" day, the fastest to $100 million. This is significant as this is the first live-action Star Wars movie released in December with the widest December release while all the previous movies had been released in the month of May. As of 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens holds the record for highest grossing opening weekend at $215 million. Click this link from Box Office Mojo for more domestic records that Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke.

After twelve days, Star Wars: The Force Awakens became the fastest movie to reach $1 billion dollars.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 135 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

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THE MARTIAN

20th Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 144 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of The Martian from YouTube.
 

In Twentieth Century Fox's The Martian, on a manned mission to Mars - astronaut/biologist Matt Damon is accidentally left behind on Mars when his crew thinks he is dead.

In a cross between Gravity, Interstellar, and Robinson Crusoe on Mars - but actually more upbeat than the others - The Martian, Produced and Directed by Ridley Scott and based on the Novel The Martian Written by Andy Weir, has Damon trying to survive all by himself after a Martian storm makes the manned Mars expedition crew believe that Damon has been lost and presumed dead after debris strikes him during the storm. Due to the limited resources that would last him thirty-one days, Damon has to science himself to survive with food and water for the next four years. Damon's sense of humor, as he is determined to use his relevant skills to survive, makes this film much more enjoyable to watch than the serious Gravity and Interstellar movies - although the movie does feel like Interstellar with the movie having both actors Damon and Jessica Chastain in both movies.

Damon's medical treatment of himself for his wounds were pretty graphic for me to see and I could barely watch them. I personally think I would have screamed a lot more than Damon did while digging into my own wounds.

The Ares III crew, Jessica Chastain, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, represent NASA astronauts at it's best - while Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, Benedict Wong, Mackenzie Davis, and Jeff Daniels represent NASA Mission Control and JPL. Daniels as the head of NASA was too much of a bureaucrat for me, while the others represented the true space proponents to me as they try to problem solve Damon's rescue and bring him home - similar to Apollo 13 - once they are able to communicate with Damon. The lack of communication with NASA and Damon's crew mates was most frustrating for me as someone who is used to using various methods of instantaneous communications.

This movie is also the most dramatic role I have seen Michael Pena play, even though he still has a comedic characterization. I also loved the astronauts flying through the spacecraft Hermes in zero gravity. Having the news media like CNN  and CNN reporter Frederick Pleitgen and the world routing for Damon made for a connection for me that Gravity and Interstellar did not have.

In scenes similar to the movie Apollo 13, NASA does what it can on the ground in order to help Damon survive and come home. NASA had scientific advisers for the movie, including James L. Green, the Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA, helping to make the movie more scientifically accurate. Fifty pages of the script is NASA material  - although there are some inaccuracies done for dramatic effect. Perhaps the mostly scientific accuracy of the movie is why some people believe that the events of this fictional movie actually did happen The movie does show how dangerous living and traveling in space can be. As Damon says, at some point - everything is going to go south on you.

I think it is cool that The Martian has been screened on the International Space Station - and that four days before the US release, NASA announced that they had found evidence that water flows on the surface of Mars. For more on NASA's planned missions to Mars, click here.

There was a lot of disco music from the collection of Commander Chastain's collection of music, which Damon played while he was alone on Mars. Surprisingly, none of the other astronauts seemed to have had their own collections of music to play as entertainment during their long mission - especially since Damon had access to their personal effects left behind when the astronauts suddenly had to abort the Mars mission.

There are scenes as the end credits start to play at the end of the movie, even though Damon's end scenes are not in the book. I thought Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive was a great song to use for the end of the movie.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of The Martian from YouTube.

 

Click below to watch a special documentary feature clip of the crew of The Martian from YouTube.

 

Rated PG-13 for language and nudity. Running time: 144 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

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ANT-MAN

Marvel Studios

Rated: PG-13

Running time: 117 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.



In Marvel Studio's Ant-Man, ex-burglar Paul Rudd is recruited by retired scientist Michael Douglas to be the super hero Ant-Man to stop rival scientist Corey Stoll from misusing Douglas's Ant-Man technology.

One of the original Avengers from The Avengers comic book, Ant-Man finally makes it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the twelfth installment of the MCU movies after being through years of development. Co-Written by Paul Rudd, Ant-Man is the last film of Marvel's Phase Two. Basically Ant-Man is a Marvel version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Rocketeer. In fact Ant-Man had been in development since the late 1980's when Ant-Man creator Stan Lee pitched the idea to New Line Entertainment - then owner of Marvel - but New Line found it too similar to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

In the movie, forty years ago, scientist Douglas develops the Pym particles which allows shrinking technology. Douglas buries that technology and resigns from SHIELD, when his misguided prodigy Stoll attempts to sell the technology to the government as a weapon for an army of soldiers that are the size of insects with superhuman strength - the ultimate secret weapon. When the Stoll of today continues to try to reinvent the technology to use as a weapons system for an army of soldiers, Douglas and his estranged executive daughter of his company Evangeline Lilly recruit ex-con burglar and divorced father Rudd to use his talents and the Ant-Man suit to redeem himself and stop Stoll in order to save the world for both of their daughters.

This movie is much more dramatic than what the currently airing trailers of which the media is airing now portrays. The movie trailers used in this review more closely represent what the style of the movie really is. It was great to see Rudd/Ant-Man going at it as a kick ass fighter with his shrinking technology and defeating security systems, which is what I wanted see in Rudd to be doing for an Ant-Man movie. Lilly is also amazing as the one who trains Rudd/Ant-Man. Most of the comic relief comes from Rudd's buddy Michael Pena and Pena's crew David Dastmalchian and Tip "T.I." Harris - and Pena's crew do not have a large part in this movie. The movie mostly concerns Douglas, Rudd, Lilly and Stoll.

It was also great to see the cameo from Garrett Morris who played Ant-Man at a party in a Saturday Night Live skit. It would have been great if the Morris cameo was at a party as well, in order to have more of a tribute to the SNL skit, maybe a cameo in a party with Stan Lee. For Stan Lee fans, Lee's cameo is at the end of the movie, so you can concentrate mostly on watching the movie until then. It was also great to see cameos of Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter and John Slattery as inventor Howard Stark, as well as a young CGI'd Micheal Douglas during the 1989 sequence.

It was cool to have the song It's a Small World being used in the film, considering the theme of Ant-Man and the movie being owned by Walt Disney Studios. Curiously, the song It's a Small World does not have a Disney Corporation copyright, and is the only Disney entity outside of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit not to have a Disney copyright. I also liked the story themes of Mentor/Pupil and Father/Daughter that were used in the film, making the movie even more of a family film. I admit to tearing up a little a couple of times during the Father/Daughter scenes, with Douglas and Lilly and with Rudd's daughter Abby Ryder Fortson and the love that they obviously had for each other.

With the introduction of the science of Pym particles, Ant-Man brings the subatomic quantum realm - the Microverse - into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are additional ties to the MCU with the continuous referrals to The Avengers. Actually, the movie feels very much like the original Iron Man movie on a small scale (no pun intended). It is amazing to me to realize how many technological suits there are in the MCU.

I wish there was more personality to the ants, but as Douglas says, Do you know how many ants there are? Even for the one ant Rudd seemed to be connect to, a personality would have been nice. Personality for the ants would have made the ants more anthropomorphic, especially when Rudd controls the ants to do his bidding. As it was, I felt Rudd's relationship with the ants appeared to be more of a master/slave relationship otherwise.

The film was shot in the 1.85 format to give a greater appreciation of the vertical aspects of the Ant-Man scenes that can not be appreciated in the traditional 2.35 aspect ratio movie format. The movie also made extensive use of macro photography to show things from Ant-Man's point of view.

It was great to see during the end credits Special Thanks to Marvel comic book artists John Buscema, John Byrne, and Gene Colan.

There is a mid credits scene and an after credits scene. It is curious to note that in my theater, most of the audience stayed all the way through to the end credits. People are getting hip to Marvel's end credits, which is a film-goer's bonus. Personally I enjoy listening to the music of the end credits as well as reading the various film departments and names.

Ant-Man will return.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.



Click below to watch a final trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.



Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 117 Minutes.

Pancho
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TERMINATOR GENISYS

Paramount Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 126 Minutes
















Click below to watch a movie trailer of Terminator Genisys on YouTube.
 

Paramount Pictures Terminator Genisys, has an apocryphal future war in 2029 against computer artificial intelligence Skynet and it's robot Terminators bent on destroying the human race. Human Resistance soldier Jai Courtney is sent back in time by Human Resistance leader Jason Clarke to save and protect Clarke's mother, Emilia Clarke, from the robot Terminators Brett Azar and Byung-hun Lee that have been sent to kill Emilia Clarke in the past - before the war and before Jason Clarke is born.

The fifth installment in the Terminator series - and the first film in a proposed new Terminator trilogy - the first half of Terminator Genisys is basically a combination of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The first half of the movie was to me the best and my favorite part of the movie, as the movie explored the various consequences of multiple timelines while time traveling. Courtney was very confused in that the situations were not what he expected to happen when he traveled back in time - as the timeline has been altered. The opposite situation as opposed to a strong kick-ass Emilia Clarke, who knew what was going on - which is opposite of what the original Terminator movie was. The second half of the movie goes off onto it's own story in order to stop Judgement Day from happening - with a Terminator still after them. I was not crazy about the direction of the second half of the story, even if the movie did have tributes to the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles trying to stop Judgement Day from happening, but I did like the action of the second half of the movie and loved the relationship of the characters. Terminator Creator James Cameron says that he considers Terminator Genisys to be the official third film of the Terminator franchise.

The filmmakers studied the Back to the Future films about how time travel works. This was important as you can get lost with how convoluted the various timelines can become.

Fan favorite Matt Smith (credited as Matthew Smith) was pretty much wasted as a fan favorite as he had very little screen time, although he was an important character. Dayo Okeniyi and Courtney B. Vance's characters were hardly used and those characters are major characters in the series.

There is a very logical explanation of Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger's mature age in the movie, as he reprises his role, as the filmmakers did not use makeup or CGI to make Arnold younger. Arnold was just as bad-ass as always in this movie and he was fun for me to watch. Many actors in the series were considered to have the actors reprise their original roles, but for various reasons they did not do so. I also do not like Schwarzenegger's credit that was listed in the movie as that is not what his name was. All the questions in the movie were answered except for one, unless I missed the answer which was not obvious. That one question was answered in another movie and I was expecting it to be reiterated in this movie.

There is a mid credits scene at the end of the movie. The first Terminator movie with a mid credits scene. It is also the first film in the series to be shot digitally and the first in the series to be shot with an anamorphic lens.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Terminator Genisys on YouTube.



Rated PG-13 for violence, language, nudity. Running time: 126 Minutes.

Pancho
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TOMORROWLAND

Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG

Running time: 130 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Tomorrowland from YouTube.

In Walt Disney Pictures Tomorrowland, Britt Robertson receives a special pin that takes her to Tomorrowland.

Written and Directed by Brad Bird, a young enthusiastic Thomas Robinson builds a jet pack and brings it to the 1964 New York World's Fair. He is then recruited and given a pin by Raffey Cassidy to be able to gain passage to the secret dimensional metropolis Tomorrowland. Decades later -  activist daughter of NASA engineer Tim McGraw - Robertson suddenly finds a pin in her possession and - because of the pin's properties, is so intrigued by the wonders of  it - searches for Tomorrowland. She soon tracks down fatalistic George Clooney - who can lead her to Tomorrowland. However, Robertson and Clooney are soon followed by some bad guy Audio Animatronics.

The movie is rated PG, but there were some scenes that I thought should have been PG-13. There was one scene especially - although everything turned out okay in the end - that was pretty shocking to me when it happened. I was going - this is a Disney movie? There are also bad guys in the movie, so there is some violence that is almost PG-13. I would have liked Robertson to have been running around with her brother Pierce Gagnon trying to find Tomorrowland in order to have made the film even more of a family friendly movie.

The movie is split between being optimistic and pessimistic. The movie told the story of two wolves - one good, one evil. The wolves fight each other. Which one wins? The one you feed. That story is the basic theme of the movie. Clooney had fatalistic coverages of the news on his wall of TV monitors feeding his fatalism. While Robertson is chasing after the cool optimism of Tomorrowland. I loved the optimistic future of Tomorrowland, of the best and brightest of the world who wanted to actually change it. That was what I wanted to be fed with during the movie, with Clooney showing Robertson the wonders of Tomorrowland.

Tomorrowland's architecture looks very much like Tomorrowland from Disneyland. The technology of Tomorrowland was also pretty cool too. Some of the technology reminded me of the TV series Eureka. Although we did not get to see the best and brightest of the citizens of Tomorrowland as actual characters in Tomorrowland, except for Cassidy and the governor Hugh Laurie - both of whom were basically controlling the story of Tomorrowland. Actually the closest to seeing the best and brightest people of Tomorrowland, outside of the stars, were mannequins of Gustave Eiffel, Jules Verne, Nikola Tesla and of Thomas Edison. Actually it was pretty cool that the characters of the movie traveled all over the world, giving a true sense of optimism.

The governor of Tomorrowland Laurie was not so optimistic and did not seem as bright as one should be as governor of a scientific society like Tomorrowland. I was surprised and sad that the movie brought up such apocalyptic subjects like Mutually Assured Destruction. As a result, the movie was not as much of a fun positive entertainment as I wanted the movie to be with the threat of the future running out throughout the entire plot.

I liked the science fiction store with all the props and memorabilia of science fiction films. It was great having the owner Hugo Gernsback/Keegan-Michael Key make an entrance to the Star Wars theme song.

What was cool was that the movie had the song There's a Great, Big Beautiful Tomorrow in the beginning of the movie, giving the sense of a positive movie for Robinson. I was singing along with the song, although I was the only one around me doing that in the theater. I guess no one in the theater was old enough to be exposed to the song from Disneyland's late attraction - Carousel of Progress.

I cried at the end of the movie. There is a sense of optimism at the end of the movie, but the music played during the end credits was pretty somber in parts. The Tomorrowland animated sequence during the end credits represents Bird's animation influence.

Based on components of the themed land Tomorrowland at Disney theme parks, the end credits showed that the movie was filmed at Tomorrowland - although part of the movie was definitely filmed at It's a Small World at Fantasyland in Disneyland along with having the song It's a Small World (After All) in the movie, to which I was also singing to. I think it is quite appropriate that Tomorrowland opened during Disneyland's 60th Diamond Anniversary Celebration. I liked the end credit touch at the very end of the credits.

This is the first theatrical film to be released in Dolby Vision.

 Click below to watch another movie trailer of Tomorrowland from YouTube.

 

Click below to watch a final movie trailer of Tomorrowland from YouTube.



Rated PG for violence. Running time: 130 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Insurgent

Lionsgate

Rated PG-13

Running Time: 119 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Insurgent on YouTube.
 

In Lionsgate Insurgent, has Shailene Woodley and Theo James are on the run after evading a hostile takeover from Kate Winslet and her mind controlled soldiers in post-apocalyptic Chicago.

Based on the second book of the Divergent trilogy written by Veronica Roth, with Ansel Elgort, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz, Miles Teller, Maggie Q, and Mekhi Phifer returning from Divergent, the movie takes place a few days after the first movie. Jai Courtney and his soldiers search through the wreckage of Abnegation for an unknown box that has the symbols of all the factions. Winslet says that the box contains information from the city's founders with the means to end the Divergence problem which has grown beyond all control, but only a Divergent can open the box - so Winslet orders all Divergents to be hunted down and captured. An angry Woodley, who is the key to the box, goes after Winslet - who believes that Divergents will destroy their society.

I was not familiar with the Divergent series, but I did not have to see the first movie in order to follow what was happening in Insurgent.  It is good that most of the cast resumed their roles from the original movie to maintain continuity, with Insurgent being Kate Winslet's first sequel - although the movie Insurgent is different than the novel Insurgent. The movie had the feeling to me of The Maze Runner, especially towards the end, with both movies as post-apocalyptic movies.

This is the first film in the Divergent series to be released in 3-D.

The final book in the Divergent trilogy - Allegiant, will be made into two films, with Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Naomi Watts reprising their roles.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Insurgent on YouTube.



Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual situations. Running time: 119 Minutes.

Pancho 
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INTERSTELLAR

Paramount Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 169 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Interstellar.



In Paramount Pictures Interstellar, former farmer astronaut Matthew McConaughey agrees to leave his family behind in order to pilot a desperate mission through interstellar space in order to save a doomed Earth.

A combination of Gravity and 2001: A Space Odyssey - especially toward the end - Interstellar, Written with his brother Jonathan Nolan and Directed by Christopher Nolan, is a dramatic science fiction movie that explores the fate and potential of a doomed human race. This is not your typical CGI action-packed science fiction movie - but a practical examination of the exploration of deep space and the intentions of actually going out into space, with astronauts McConaughey and Anne Hathaway on opposite sides of the argument. It was great that Nolan had researched NASA and the private space program SpaceX - as well having former astronaut Marsha Ivins and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who has a cameo, as a scientific consultant to Interstellar to maintain the authenticity of the movie.

With Earth's natural resources, especially food ravaged from a blight, becoming so scarce - humanity is on the verge of failure in the midst of a dust bowl. McConaughey does what he can to improve his farm. It was nice that Nolan got permission from Director Ken Burns of the TV mini-series documentary The Dust Bowl, which took place in America during the Great Depression of the 1930's, to use their interview footage in the movie Interstellar. The logos for Warner Bros., Paramount, Syncopy, and Legendary all have a "dusty" look to them to foreshadow the movie. What got to me the most was the historical revisionism of the Apollo moon landings in McConaughey's daughter Murphy's/Mackenzie Foy's school. Of course McConaughey takes umbrage to such revisionism.

One of the most important plot points in the movie deals with time dilation and suspended animation  - time will go slower for the astronauts than for the people back home on Earth due to Einstein's general relativity equations, especially near the black hole, of which the black hole and the wormhole are two completely different things in the movie, so the people on Earth will age while the astronauts will remain the same age while they travel through the wormhole and are out on the other side of the galaxy. This was a tearjerker of a plot point theme with McConaughey and reminded me of The Twilight Zone episode The Long Morrow as the movie bounces back and forth between Earth and space.

I thought the constant use of the poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas, which was written for his dying father, was quite appropriate - especially during the launching of the spacecraft Endurance while it searches for a way to save the human race as they follow after the Lazarus missions.

Interstellar also has an interstellar cast, most of whom were never in the marketing of the film that I am aware of - with at least one star's involvement kept secret. So it was awesome to see these people in the movie, without have any preconceived notions of what kind of characters these stars would be playing. I really do not want to give away the stars of this movie - except for this, it was funny seeing Topher Grace in the movie as I had just seen him that morning on TV in That 70's Show. It is curious when I saw this movie that it was the day before Anne Hathaway's birthday.

Since Nolan wanted to avoid using anthropomorphic robots in the movie, it was strange to me not to see a traditional humanoid-looking robot. But the use of the quadrilateral design of the robots, Bill Irwin and Josh Stewart, were interesting - and more human with intelligence and emotion than most robots, especially with McConaughey programming the robots - and that the design of these robots was especially impressive to me when used on the water planet Miller.

Hans Zimmer's unique musical score was dictated by Nolan who wanted the traditional instruments to go by the wayside.

The movie is a long movie. With the movie trailers, Interstellar is close to three hours.

It is curious that for the limited release of the movie - Interstellar was released in 70mm and 35mm film in theaters that still support those formats, including 70mm IMAX theaters. This is an exception to Paramount Pictures goal to stop releasing movies on film and to distribute only in digital format as nearly all the theaters in the United States have converted to digital projection.

At the end of the movie, the audience applauded.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Interstellar.



Click below to watch a final movie trailer of Interstellar.



Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 169 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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THE MAZE RUNNER

20th Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 113 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of The Maze Runner.

In Twentieth Century Fox's The Maze Runner, amnesiac Dylan O'Brien finds himself transported into a mysterious Glade with a group of boys - which is surrounded by a giant maze.

In a cross between The Hunger Games and The Lord of the Flies, the apocalyptic movie The Maze Runner is based on the book The Maze Runner by James Dashner (who had a cameo in the film). Told from the point of view of O'Brien, we follow the amnesiac O'Brien as he tries to figure out what is going on, who put them there, and how to escape The Glade that the boy Gladers have struggled to make into a low technology camp by running the dangerous maze.

What I liked about the movie is that the audience learned what was going on in the movie at the same time that O'Brien learned what was going on. You did not have to read the book to know what was going on. In fact I had never even heard of the young adult book series The Maze Runner until the movie came out. As a result, the movie The Maze Runner is the first of the movie series that will be made out of The Maze Runner books. While not mentioned in the movie, I also liked the fact that the characters names were named after historical figures and scientists as those are some of the themes of the movie.

While the cast was made up of a group of talented young British stars, similar in age to The Hunger Games, such as Aml Ameen, Ki Hong Lee, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Kaya Scodelario, the only actor that I had actually heard of was Will Poulter, as O'Brien's rival who got upset that everything has changed ever since O'Brien arrived in The Glade. It was bad enough that O'Brien is not following the rules, but that the Gladers are dying as a result of O'Brien not following the rules.

While the movie is good on the action and suspense, and the acting by the stars - the movie did make me cry - there were a couple of things that did not make sense, like the fact that it takes incredible resources and technology to even build the huge miles long maze.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 113 minutes.

Pancho
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GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Marvel Studios

Rated PG-13

Running Time: 121 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Guardians of the Galaxy.
 

In Marvel Studios Guardians of the Galaxy, kidnapped Earth man Peter Quill/Star Lord/Chris Pratt, winds up in an uneasy partnership with a group of extraterrestrial misfits Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, and Rocket/Bradley Cooper who are on the run through space from Lee Pace, Djimon Hounsou and Karen Gillan after scavenging a mysterious orb for a buyer.

Based on the 2008 version of the 45 year old comic book series Guardians of the Galaxy, this is the first non-Avengers Marvel property developed by Walt Disney Pictures as well as being a Marvel Phase 2 movie. Guardians of the Galaxy is more of a bad-assed action film than a comedy that the movie trailers had made the movie appear to be, with the opening scenes before the credits of the movie being a tearjerker. Despite being an ensemble piece, Quill/Star Lord/Pratt is the leader of these criminals, who pulls these losers into a group in order to do something good to save the galaxy. Tree creature Diesel puts a lot of emotion into his one line of dialog that he repeats throughout the movie. Diesel also recorded all the languages of his line for the international releases of the movie. Racoon Rocket/Cooper and tree person Groot/Diesel will be the toys for this movie.

For Executive Producer Stan Lee fans, his cameo appears relatively early in the movie and the audience reacted positively to his appearance.

Being the first movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe set in space, a lot of the cosmic space elements from the Marvel comics universe are mentioned in the movie - with cameos of major comic characters, including Benicio Del Toro and an uncredited Josh Brolin. The movie also includes an Infinity Stone appearing in the movie. The cameos and the Infinity Stone hint at future movie roles in the Marvel Cosmic Universe.

While part of the promotional marketing of the movie has Glenn Close in the trailers - she has basically a walk-on part with hardly any lines, despite the nature of her character. I loved the mixed cassette music of 70's and 80's songs that was put together for Quinn's/Pratt's Walkman. I would not be surprised if the soundtrack for this movie becomes a hit. Of course what is funny is that Quinn's/Pratt's Walkman and cassette tape has lasted for over 20 years.

I saw the movie in 3D. While the 3D seemed good in the beginning - after awhile I stopped noticing it except for certain action scenes and one awe scene, some of which the action scenes made me blink.

While there might be a couple of points where scenes would seem scientifically inaccurate - given what was established, I could accept those scenes. The end of the movie was also a bit deus ex machina to me, but the end of the movie also might be acceptable given to what was established.

After the end credit music, the very last end credit scene of the movie might be controversial with the fanboys, so I would not be surprised if nothing ever became of it and just appeared in the movie as just a last joke. But then again, the fanboys would go nuts if this was real and Marvel did it right. I believe it was for legal reasons with Marvel that the creator's names that were involved with this scene had appeared after the end of this scene. If Marvel actually does make a movie and puts this on the production schedule in a slot that has not been confirmed yet, I hope that they make that movie as originally intended by the creators as a satirical existential experience, instead of just something from space.

The very last visual on the screen is that GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY WILL RETURN.

As of 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy broke the record for an August debut.

Rated PG-13 for violence, obscenity. Running time: 121 minutes.  

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Guardians of the Galaxy.



Click below to watch a final movie trailer of Guardians of the Galaxy.



Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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