Battle: Los Angeles

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 116 minutes



In Columbia Pictures Battle: Los Angeles - Los Angeles is being invaded by aliens from space and a U.S. Marine unit defends the city against them.

Staff Sargent Aaron Eckhart decides to retire, after losing his men in a previous tour - when the aliens arrive under the guise of meteorites. He now has to lead his men, who distrust him to keep them alive - especially the brother of a Marine killed under his command. Also leading the men is 2nd Lieutenant Ramon Rodriguez, fresh out of Officer Candidate School as the Marines are sent in to evacuate some stranded civilians from a West Los Angeles police station. Amongst the civilians is veterinarian Bridget Moynahan who helps dissect an alien. Along the way the Marines pick up a squad of friendlies, including Technical Sargent Michelle Rodriguez from the U.S. Air Force who was sent on a recon mission to search for the aliens Command and Control center.

Inspired on the real events of the 1942 Battle of Los Angeles, this is an intense film of a homeland invasion. Done in the style of Cloverfield and told from the point of view of the Marines, the shaky-cam might be a distraction in the beginning - but is soon ignored as the action starts. The initial breaking news stories adds to the realism of the film. The film deals with intense urban street fighting, ground combat. There is very little air combat action, despite the use of helicopter troop carriers and the drone foo fighters. As a Los Angeles local, it was nice hearing them mention Los Angeles streets, so you can track the Marines progress through the city. The intense action amongst our neighborhoods makes you wonder what it would really be like if our homes really were invaded - and not necessarily by aliens. You do not really get a good look at the aliens and for a while I was not sure if the aliens were drones or aliens in battle armour.

The film really is about the story of the Marines and not the aliens, and there were times that I teared up as I related to what happened to the Marines. The actors trained with the Marines, so their depiction was very believable, as I am sure their characters were as well. It was nice that the movie opened on 03/11/11 as 0311 is the Marine Corps Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) for Infantry Riflemen. The film was such a positive movie that at the end of the film the audience cheered. As the Marines say: Retreat? HELL!

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 116 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Like us on Facebook. Pancho's Movie Reviews

The Eagle

Focus Features

Rated PG-13

Running time: 114 Minutes



Set during the Roman Empire, Focus Features The Eagle, has a Roman Legion of 5000 infantry men disappear. 20 years later, the Legion commander's son Channing Tatum tries to find out what has happened to his father who had commanded the missing legion in order to regain his honor and retrieve their golden emblem - an Eagle.

This film is about honor as Channing Tatum tries to regain his family's honor - especially when his men consider Tatum to be a bad omen; Tatum's slave Jamie Bell's honor of staying with Tatum when Tatum saved Bell's life; and also of the Eagle's honor - which represents Rome. The senator friend of Tatum's uncle, Donald Sutherland, as well as the senator's son did not seem to have any honor as they refuse to support Tatum's one man expedition to investigate rumors of the location of the Eagle. The film also becomes a road/buddy film when Tatum and Bell leave home and set off past the "known world" and explore the land out north past the Wall Barrier to search for the Eagle. When the tables turn, and Bell becomes the master and Tatum becomes the slave, makes you think about the whole idea of slavery that we do not experience today and what it really means to be free - that slavery is more than just a matter of servitude.

I did not know that the Roman Empire had reached as far as the British Isles. That part was very interesting to me as the British Isles gave a different landscape for the film than a traditional European location for the Roman Empire. While The Eagle is more of a drama than an action film - there are battle sequences in the move, which unfortunately are not as epic as I would have preferred. The battle scenes also just end - instead of finishing the battle, which left me feeling a little unsatisfied as to the resolution of the battles. However, the violence of the movie is not that graphic despite the brutality of the times. The final fate of what happened to the missing legion is rather sad and made me consider what could go up against 5,000 trained heavily armed legionnaire soldiers.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 114 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

The Mechanic

CBS Films

Rated R

Running time: 93 minutes
































Click below to watch The Mechanic trailer.



In CBS Films The Mechanic, Jason Statham is a "Mechanic" - otherwise known as a hit man. When his mentor Donald Sutherland is killed, Statham reluctantly takes on Sutherland's hothead son Ben Foster as his trainee as they both go after the people responsible for Sutherland's death.

A remake of The Mechanic that starred Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent, this movie shows that being a Mechanic is a profession and the type of "hits" Statham is required to do is almost an art form. I like the quote that "the best jobs are the ones, nobody ever knows you were there." While I have never seen the original film - and granted one of the reasons I saw this current film was that someone that I have worked with in Hollywood, Richard Wenk, co-wrote the script - I liked how Statham trained Foster, stressing the homework and surveillance as well as the weapons training. Stathan and Foster basically become a professional choreographed team, despite Foster's rashness. There is also more characterization in the movie than I had expected for this film, as really the film is more about the almost father-son relationship between Statham and Foster. Sutherland is a memorable character as Statham's mentor, while Tony Goldwyn is not as smarmy as I wanted him to be as the head of the company that Statham works for - especially when you consider the many millions each contract hit is worth.

The direction by Simon West is typical for his action and seamier side of life - although putting both styles together is almost too schizophrenic for the film. The people getting shot in the film can also be rather graphic. Considering the amount of mayham and destruction that was carried out amongst the streets, it was unbelievable to me that no police forces were anywhere around to try to handle the situation. The climax is not as satisfying either - as the bad guy just basically runs away, instead of trying to fight Statham and Foster. The tag can also be depressing to see as it was for me, as you have grown to care about the characters.

Rated R for violence, nudity, and sexual situations. Running time: 93 minutes

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews

The Green Hornet

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 119 minutes


















Click below to watch The Green Hornet trailer.



In Columbia Pictures The Green Hornet, playboy Seth Rogen's stern newspaper publisher father Tom Wilkinson, who writes about corruption in the city - is murdered. While trying to do something crazy to spite his stern late father, Rogan and his driver, Jay Chow, stop a mugging. Rogan then decides to become the crimefighter "The Green Hornet."

In a campy remake of the short-lived TV show from the 1960's The Green Hornet, starring martial artist Bruce Lee, The Green Hornet movie is the opposite of Batman in that playboy Seth Rogan as Britt Reid becomes a crimefighter while pretending to be a criminal - while Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne pretends to be a playboy in order to hide the fact that he has become a crimefighter that was wanted by the police for being a vigilante. While comedian Michael Keaton became too serious for playboy Bruce Wayne/Batman, comedian Seth Rogan is not serious enough as crimefighter Green Hornet/playboy Britt Reid. This is not surprising as the movie was co-written by Rogan. Although there are a couple of dramatic scenes for Rogan in which he was good at, there are very few of those scenes and the movie is really full of your typical Rogan comedic scenes. If we could combine the playboy Seth Rogan and the Michael Keaton's Dark Knight Batman, as well as treating the material seriously like The Dark Knight, we could have had the ideal dual identity/schizophrenic crimefighter.

Asian pop star Jay Chou as Bruce Lee's Kato is the brains of The Green Hornet duo - as Rogan's father's former mechanic, who not only designs and builds all of The Green Hornet's incredible gadgets - Kato also builds The Black Beauty, their car which kicks ass much better than The Batmobile. In fact, really The Black Beauty is why you want to see this action movie - with Jay Chou's martial arts the next reason. There is an homage to Bruce Lee with a sketch of him supposed to have been done by Kato, as well as homages to the old Batman TV show. It was great to hear the Green Hornet TV theme song at the end. The bad guy at first seemed to be a formidable foe, but he soon turned into a comic book character that even his henchman says that he is crazy. Rogan's secretary Cameron Diaz is the unsuspecting female brains of the duo as Chou and Rogan pick her journalistic brains to see what she thinks as to what the criminal "The Green Hornet" might do next.

Despite the fact that a paper newspaper seems old school, they have Edward James Olmos as the newspaper editor in the movie. Sadly - after an incredible performance in Battlestar Galactica - Olmos performance was practically non-existent in the movie as the newspaper editor, which is too bad as Olmos is in the perfect position to be Rogan's mentor. Rogan's desperation to upload incriminating evidence on the web seems very contradictory to the archaic newspaper technology in the newspaper plant that he finds himself fighting amongst. As friends of mine who work for newspapers will attest, the newspapers as a media for delivering news are moving more and more to being online and that there is less news paper being produced.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 119 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Little Fockers

Universal Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 98 minutes
















Click below to watch the Little Fockers trailer.



Universal Pictures Little Fockers has male nurse Ben Stiller being reluctantly made the family Godfocker by the family patriarch, ex-CIA man Robert De Niro. De Niro soon regrets this decision when, after using the Google search engine, he suspects Stiller of cheating on his daughter Teri Polo with medicinal drug representative Jessica Alba.

A sequel to Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, Little Fockers is a cute, but uneven film. Considering the title, you would think that Little Fockers would be more about the kids Daisy Tahan and Colin Baiocchi interacting more with Stiller and De Niro -  especially interacting with grandfather De Niro. It was great to see a scene with De Niro and Harvey Keitel, even if it is a short scene. I am surprised I have not seen these two actors together in a movie before. While De Niro is still a tough guy, it is hard to compare Little Fockers to the 30th anniversary Blue-ray edition of Raging Bull which had just come out. This is especially true with all the ED jokes with De Niro from Jessica Alba's new impotence drug, the treatment for which is quite traumatic. While Jessica Alba is hot, I also miss Alba doing the serious roles as well - like Dark Angel, the role which had made Alba famous. Laura Dern is interesting as the head of the school that Stiller and De Niro want to put the children in. As Dern says, "there are a lot of family dynamics at play here" when she Meets the Parents. New age guru Owen Wilson can get annoying as he horns in on Stiller's family. A cameo by self-improvement guru Deepak Chopra is cute although you wish the cameos by Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand, as well as the cat Jinxie, would have been more. 

Rated PG-13 for violence and sexual situations. Running time: 98 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

The Tourist

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 103 minutes





























Click below to watch The Tourist trailer.



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

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

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

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

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

TRON: Legacy

Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG

Running time: 127 minutes































Click below to watch the Tron: Legacy trailer.



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

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

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

Rated PG for violence. Running time: 127 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews