BATTLESHIP

Universal Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 131 Minutes



Click below to watch the Battleship trailer.



In Universal's Battleship, which is based on the game by Hasbro, screw up Taylor Kitsch is drafted by his Naval brother Alexander Skarsgård into the United States Navy with Skarsgard. While on RIMPAC, the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, a multi-national maritime exercise in which the U.S. Navy participates in - they encounter an alien invasion force.

While the movie was based on the game of Battleship, there were very little references to the game, or the references to the ads in which most of the audience would be more familiar with if they have never played the game. That seems a poor marketing strategy on the studio's/writer's part. Those of us who grew up with the game like me would want to see a little bit more of that. The ads of the game today are based on the movie. The references in the movie were not always directly related to the game. You had to reach for the references to notice the connection to the game. The most obvious references were the alien artillery that were shaped like the pegs in the game, although the artillery pegs were not aerodynamically launched. The alien artillery flew through the air like thrown knives and I am surprised that they did not bounce off the ships when they were flying like that. The scene where the movie used tsunami warning buoys, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather tracking system, to locate the water displacement of the alien ships so they can call out artillery strikes against the alien ships is a direct reference as to playing the game. There was one scene in the movie that had dialog that was different than the trailer. Frankly, I liked the dialog in the trailer better for that scene than what they used in the movie. There was also a scene in the movie that was based on a true-life funny video that went viral on YouTube.

The movie is a combination of Top Gun, Under Siege, Independence Day, Battle Los Angeles, and Transformers. While the story is pretty standard, my favorite parts of the movie deal with the Naval exercise and the Naval ships themselves. Seeing the close-in weapon systems (CIWS) being used for the shipboard point-defense against the alien artillery was awesome. It was great seeing the old battleship U.S.S. Missouri and the old salt Navy men who had crewed the Missouri during World War II.  It was especially great since battleships are now considered obsolete because they are too expensive to operate, as well as battleships having been surpassed by aircraft carriers as being the leading capital ships for the Navy.

A touching subplot, which gives a sense of realism to the movie, deals with the wounded warriors and the therapy they must go through. Kitsch's girlfriend Brooklyn Decker - who also unfortunately for Kitsch just happens to be the daughter of Kitsch's commanding officer Admiral Liam Neeson - is a therapist who gives therapy to real-life wounded warrior bi-lateral amputee Gregory D. Gadson in Oahu. Unfortunately, Admiral Neeson and most of the fleet were caught outside the alien force field and Neeson was not involved in fighting the aliens. This was a disappointment as I was expecting Neeson to be heavily involved in the action, one commander of our fleet against the commander of the alien fleet. Having some of the alien devastation taking place in Hong Kong adds to the scope of the movie, while news clips and footage of President Barack Obama, as well as the use of actual Naval personnel as extras to the movie added to the realism of the movie. Although, Peter MacNicol's brief appearance as the U.S. Secretary of Defense did not add to the political realism to me. Special thanks was given to the United States Department of Defense at the end of the movie.

This was singer Rihanna's acting debut. While I have never heard her music, Rihanna did pretty good as a Gunner's Mate and weapons specialist who kicked alien butt. Her character was basically of a girl from the hood who had joined the Navy and fired some big guns on both of the small boats and being on gun control on the big ships. Having wounded warrior Gadson also kicking alien butt in the movie was also fun to see. This was basically Kitsch's movie, so having Kitsch give up command of his ship over to his soccer rival Captain Tadanobu Asano, while understandable, bothered me. Also, I am not sure if that is legal to give up command of your ship like that in the Navy.

The plot of the alien invasion was too similar to Independence Day. Alien ships arrive from space and start to cause havoc, mostly with the Naval forces while trying to control communications. The aliens were too humanoid to me for the aliens to be scary enough as a threat, the aliens were just big and mean. The aliens weapons were scarier and more destructive than the aliens themselves. The alien ships were more like submersibles instead of aircraft as the alien ships hopscotched across the ocean. However the alien ships hopscotching along the ocean allowed the alien ships to be targeted like in the game. 

At the end of the movie, there is a scene at the end of the end credits. This is the longest after credits scene that I have ever seen. I am not sure if this scene was just a nice tag to the movie, or a hint of what the sequel will be.

This was also the first time that I saw Universal's 100th anniversary logo. I thought the new introduction logo was cool.

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

Click below to watch another trailer of Battleship.



Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

THE AVENGERS

Paramount Pictures in association with Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 142 Minutes




Click below to watch The Avengers trailer.



In Marvel Studios The Avengers, written and directed by Joss Whedon - the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the Trickster Norse God Loki, Tom Hiddleston, steals a powerful power source called a tesseract from the counter terrorism and intelligence agency of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division - S.H.I.E.L.D. In order to recover the tesseract, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury, Samuel L. Jackson, then feels it is time to gather together a team of heroes that becomes - The Avengers.

Based on the Marvel comic book, The Avengers - created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby - the team of heroes that Jackson puts together consists of Captain America, Chris Evans, Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr., Thor, Chris Hemsworth, The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo, along with The Black Widow, Scarlett Johansson, and Hawkeye, Jeremy Renner. This team is a dysfunctional group of people - which eventually become Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The team was so dysfunctional, there was one scene where everyone yells at each other because of their hidden agendas. While this all may seem quite dramatic, and the movie is dramatic, this dysfunction of the team also leads to some funny moments.

With Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and The Hulk having their own movies previously produced by Marvel leading up to the ultimate team adventure, of which The Avengers is, Marvel built up quite an audience which lead to The Avengers breaking the $200 million mark for an opening weekend and breaking $100 million in it's second weekend - thus setting a couple of new records. I saw the movie as the first showing on a Sunday afternoon the first weekend and the theater was pretty full. When the movie ended, there was a line for the next show when I got out.

While some of the previous Marvel movies were uneven, The Avengers is the ultimate comic book movie. The super hero battles utilized all of the heroes talents and powers, making the battles intense. All of the Avengers had their own little scenes, which gave them some characterization in the movie, allowing you to get to know all of them - although there was not as much characterization done with Renner's Hawkeye - but it was great to see Renner as the World's Greatest Marksman shoot all of his arrows, even if he was not referred as the World's Greatest Marksman but a master assasin.

Hiddleston as Thor's adopted brother Loki is the bad guy of the movie. Although, there were times that Hiddleston seemed to have just accepted things and had just let himself get captured - which made Hiddleston to me appear to be not as strong, or as evil as a super villain who wants to rule humanity as he should have been. Even though I knew Hiddleston had sinister intentions for doing that, I still felt a little wishy-washy about Hiddleston being the ultimate bad guy as a result. However, Hiddleston's interactions and intense battles with The Avengers makes up for Hiddleston being so wishy-washy. Loki's helmet was straight out of the comics and the helmet really made me believe that Hiddleston was the evil Loki when he wore it. With Hiddleston's helmet on, this was the evil Loki that I grew up with.

I was wondering how they were going to bring Hemsworth's Thor back to Earth - because at the end of the Thor movie, Hemsworth had left Earth. While Hemsworth's Thor did return to Earth in The Avengers, Thor's return was more of an incidental thing in The Avengers rather than his return being a significant plot point. Hemsworth's and Hiddleston's fraternal rivalry was great to see again, as their fraternal rivalary is the basis for Hiddleston's sinister motivation - as well as Hemsworth's sense of responsibility, because it is Hemsworth's brother that is causing all of this destruction.

Hiddleston's army from space was alluded to throughout the film, but it is only until the climax that you actually get to see his alien army. The climax is similar to the climax of the Transformer films and Green Lantern, but The Avengers climax is a much better climax as there are multiple threats in the movie and you can tell the bad guys and the good guys apart. Civilians and military are involved in the climax, and not just as victims. One of my favorite scenes in the climax is of a line of New York City police officers shooting up at some attacking airborne aliens in their defense as the aliens are strafing the police. Jackson's Nick Fury must deal with a scenario straight out of the movie Fail Safe. That scene shows how desperate the situation has turned into, although you have a fairly good idea of how it would turn out.

S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier as their floating/flying aircraft carrier Headquarters was great, right out of the comic books. To see the Helicarrier take off and fly shows how large a craft it really is. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on board the Helicarrier were dressed in the uniforms just like what they wear in the comic books. While I believe there was a resolution for the tesseract, the resolution was not a big enough resolution for me to truely remember it. If the resolution scene is the scene that I think it is, I have to concentrate to remember that particular scene out of all the memorable scenes in the movie. For comic book fans, comic book creator Stan Lee's cameo appearance appears at the end of the movie - so you can concentrate on watching the movie instead of looking for Lee. Cameo appearances of characters from the other Marvel movies also appear in the movie, with the fate of one such character at stake.

With the Hulk being motion-captured from Ruffalo, this was the most believable to me computer graphic of the Hulk. It was still a computer graphic, but this computer graphic Hulk was much more believable as a character to me than other CGI Hulks. It is nice to know that Lou Ferrigno got to do the voice of the Hulk once again after playing the Hulk in various forms over the years since his TV show The Incredible Hulk several years ago.

I saw the movie in Dolby 3D. The film was shot in 2D and converted to 3D. This conversion was most obvious in the slow opening scenes, and was not very good 3D in the beginning, which made me wish that I did not pay for a 3D show - but the 3D did get better as the movie went on and I enjoyed the 3-D look of the movie.

At the end of the movie the audience applauded. There is a scene during the end credits that alludes to the Avengers sequel. While they did not mention the name, the makeup alludes to some known Marvel villains of whom I am looking forward to as they would make great villains - if they are the villains I am thinking of. At the very end of the end credits, there is a little intimate silent scene. Although, like the guy said behind me mentioned at the end - they should have said something during the scene. It was a great place for a joke.

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

Click for movie reviews of the following movies: Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews

WRATH OF THE TITANS

Warner Bros.

Rated PG-13

Running time: 99 Minutes



Click below to watch the Wrath of the Titans trailer.



Warner Bros. Wrath of the Titans, has Perseus, Sam Worthington - from ancient Greece - having to fight the Titans as Worthington tries to rescue his father - the god Zeus, Liam Neeson, from the underworld.

In the sequel to Clash of the Titans, Wrath of the Titans has Worthington - a decade after the events of Clash of the Titans - trying to live a quiet life at home as a fisherman and being a single parent to his son John Bell. When Worthington learns that his father Neeson - the god Zeus - is being held prisoner in the deadly maze-like underworld of Tartarus from a dying Poseidon, Danny Huston, Worthington along with Huston's son Agenor, Toby Kebbell, goes after Neeson. Worthington's brother Ares, Édgar Ramírez, and Neeson's brother Hades, Ralph Fiennes, had captured Neeson in order to free Neeson's and Fiennes's powerful father Kronos - who they had all gotten together to overthrow Kronos and had imprisoned Kronos in the underworld long ago and was weakened by the lack of devotion by humanity. With the draining of Neeson's god-like powers, Kronos - the Titan's - strength grows stronger and escapes from the underworld to threaten to destroy the world.


I had mixed feelings about this movie. As much as I wanted to see a story about the gods and seeing Titanic battles, it was hard for me to care about the characters. Without caring about the characters - the battles meant nothing to me, which was a shame. Part of my not caring about the characters was that I did not care about Worthington. Despite the fact that Worthington had a son that he loved and was trying to protect, I could not relate to Worthington as he did not seem to relate to the others. I did not care for Worthington in the movie Avatar either for the same reason. I related more to Agenor, Toby Kebbell, as the son of Poseidon, Danny Huston, rather than to Worthington as Kebbell was much funnier. The weapons-maker of the gods Hephaestus, Bill Nighy, was also funny. There was a subtle sense of humor to the movie that at times I was wondering if the dialog was supposed to be funny, or if the audience had just considered the movie funny. The directing style of the movie by Jonathan Liebesman was more of a European style than an American style, which is curious as Liebesman directed Battle Los Angeles and the movie Battle Los Angeles was more in the style of an American film. The action of Wrath of the Titans was mostly up close and personal, which was a bit much for me as the movie did not allow me to feel some distance and perspective from the action. As for the bestial Titans, you never really got a good look at them - as these monsters were moving around so fast. With Kronos being the father of the gods, I wanted some dialog from him berating his children - but you never got that, you just got a big angry monster Titan.

When talking about the Greek gods and demi-gods, I forget at how large a dysfunctional family the gods were. With their god-like egos, the gods definitely are at odds with each other - and humans get caught in the middle of the gods. Humans like Queen Andromeda, Rosamund Pike, and her army get caught in the middle and must battle the gods. Having the family of gods at each other's throats, makes me very disconserted when compared to my loving family who have each other's backs. While Neeson is appropriately wise as the god king, Neeson does not seem to me as if he were the lecherous, promiscuous god who was well known for begetting dozens of gods and demi-gods.

I saw the movie in Dolby 3D. The movie was very good in 3D, both in the action and in the intimate moments with a roundness and deepness to the closeups as well as the objects flying at you in the action scenes. I did not see the first movie, and I heard the first movie was converted from 2D to 3D and heard that the conversion for the first movie was bad, but Wrath of the Titans was very good in 3D. As the kid in front of me said at the end of the movie, "3D was awesome!"

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 99 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

MIRROR MIRROR

Relativity Media

Rated PG

Running time: 106 Minutes



Click below to watch the Mirror Mirror trailer.



In Relativity Media's Mirror Mirror, evil Queen Julia Roberts steals control of her dead husband's kingdom and exiles her step-daughter Snow White, Lily Collins.

This retelling of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs story is a cute retelling of the story by The Brothers Grimm, and reminds me more of The Princess Bride rather than of the Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs movie. The seven dwarfs also have different names in this movie than what they had in the Disney movie, such as Grimm, Butcher, Wolf, Napoleon, Half Pint, Grub, and Chuckles. The dwarfs on their stilts make awesome bandits and adds to the stylized look of the movie. When Collins discovers that Roberts servant Nathan Lane is collecting taxes from the poor people of the kingdom, Collins has the taxes returned to the people and credits the dwarfs for the money's return. Feeling appreciated, the dwarfs decide to teach Collins how to fight, and Collins soon learns to kick butt - thus making the movie a swashbuckler. Collins sword fight against Prince Armie Hammer is reminiscent of the sword fight in The Princess Bride, despite the fact that Collins loves Hammer. Having the Queen wanting to marry Hammer, both for his money and his looks is almost obscene - especially when she uses a love potion on him. It made me want Collins to thwart Roberts wedding plans and win back Collins birthright, which Collins was determined to do.

Instead of just talking with the magic mirror - which would have made me think that would have been one of the main points of the movie considering that the title of the movie is Mirror Mirror. Roberts walks into the mirror in her castle, and winds up in some type of other dimension besides a lakeside hut which houses the real magic mirror which contains Roberts reflection - who continually warns Roberts of the consequences of using magic.

The scene that got to me, was the scene where Roberts is undergoing a "beauty treatment" - with foul substances, as well as a "beauty treatment" with insects. Having all of that put on me would definitely creep me out. I could not watch that scene with the bugs. Arghhh! While the beast of the forest looks like something that could have survived in the forest, I wanted something bigger and scarier. At least the beast was something similar to the Disney beast from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which made the beast somewhat acceptable to me.

I liked the musical dance number that the characters did during the end credits of the movie.

Rated PG for violence. Running time: 106 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews

THE HUNGER GAMES

Lionsgate

Rated PG-13

Running time: 142 Minutes

Click below to watch The Hunger Games trailer.




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

21 JUMP STREET

Columbia Pictures and MGM Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 109 Minutes





Click below to watch the 21 Jump Street trailer.



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

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

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

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

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

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

JOHN CARTER

Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 132 Minutes


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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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