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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ACT OF VALOR

Relativity Media

Rated R

Running Time 111 Minutes



Click below to watch the trailer of Act of Valor.



In Relativity Media's Act of Valor, a Navy Seal team goes on a personnel recovery mission to recover an abducted CIA agent Roselyn Sanchez. The SEALs then search around the world for the terrorists responsible for Sanchez's kidnapping before the terrorists bring their terrorism back home to our country America.

Using active duty U.S. Navy SEALs as the Seal team makes the tactics and action of the SEALs incredibly real. We get to see the weapons and equipment the SEALs currently use on combat deployment, as well as seeing the SEALSs support equipment and their support personnel. The use of the Special Operations Craft-Riverine warboats with active duty Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen, or SWCC, was my favorite part of the movie - especially the way the warboats came charging in for the hot extraction of the SEALs. The film took two years to make as the producers had to work around the SEALs deployments. Watching the SEALs in action made me appreciate the SEALs more for all of the sacrifices the SEALs go through for protecting our country - especially when you consider the SEALs motto is "The only easy day was yesterday."

With the movie having assistance from U.S. Navy personnel and the Naval Special Warfare Command, I can appreciate that this movie is an authentic action film as the SEALs, while in the process of making the film, would not do anything in the movie that was not real and authentic - like the infiltration scenes of their objective areas. I am glad they had water operations that the SEALs were able to do in the movie, since they are Navy SEALs. A lot of the SEALs action scenes were first person shooter scenes where you see through the eyes of the SEAL as they look for targets, especially during night vision scenes. It was great seeing the uploaded camera feed from the UAV for the SEALs to use for intelligence. In other movies, this kind of information appears to come from satellite reconnaissance imagery. This kind of information coming from UAV's is much more believable. The graphics of the locations around the world was a nice idea. Then the graphics would then zoom into the location of the scene - but would sometimes zoom in the opposite direction than what you would expect, which was disorientating.

Having the computer graphics of the team members records makes for a cool introductions, but outside of the team leaders, you do not get to know the team as people - and even then, it was hard for me to tell the leaders apart, since they both looked and sounded alike and had no characterization, except for the fact that one was going to be a father. His story and family life was the basis for the framing story in their civilian lives, as their spouses and children sacrifice so much to support them. The SEALs acting, when they were acting instead of being SEALS, was not that great - but then they are SEALs and not actors. Alex Veadov was more relatable to me as the bad guy than with the SEALs acting as characters. What does come across in the film with the SEALs are the SEALs brotherhood for each other - that they would die for each other. The fictional story is pretty much like it came out of today's breaking news headlines - especially since the story is basically an amalgamation of several SEAL operations.

As a Filipino, I was both proud and saddened that the Philippines and Filipinos were involved in some of the action in the movie. Unfortunately, such things can happen in places like the Philippines in the real world.

At the end of the movie, the audience applauded. The film also listed at the end of the movie the members of the SEALs who gave their lives since 9/11. Sadly, as of 2012, there were a lot of names listed of SEALs who gave their lives. There were much more names on the list than I would have thought would be listed. Considering how good the SEALs were when depicted in the intense action scenes in the movie on what they do, it makes you realize how many intense operations the elite Seal teams have been deployed on over the years to accrue that many causalities. No wonder the Seals have such an intense brotherhood amongst themselves. Over the end credits were pictures of Americana and the real-life heroes who protect our freedom.

"To them and those like them. Damn few."

Rated R for graphic war violence. Running Time: 111 Minutes.

Click below to watch the documentary of Act of Valor.



Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 95 Minutes



Click below to watch the Ghost Rider: Sprit of Vengeance trailer.



In Columbia Pictures Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, former stunt motorcyclist - now Ghost Rider - Nicolas Cage must rescue a boy Fergus Riordan from Satan Ciarán Hinds who wants to turn Riordan into Hinds new human body.

After his sanctuary has been invaded by Johnny Whitworth, mysterious vigilante Idris Elba informs a reluctant Cage that Cage can be free of the Rider - but Cage must first protect young Riordan. It turns out Riordan's mother Violante Placido made the same deal with the Devil Hinds that Cage did, and now Hinds wants Placido's son Riordan as payment and now Hinds has Whitworth searching for them.

I think this movie is better than the original Ghost Rider. The movie is darker, has more action, and has more of a graphic novel look with it's graphic art, as well as having black and white film noir looking scenes. In this film, Cage wanted to get far away from home after the events of the first movie and to prevent his alter ego Ghost Rider - who becomes embodied in hellfire - from hurting anyone with his ultimate capital punishment. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is also set in Europe this time instead of America and deals more with religion, so it appears to have more of an historical context since Europe is much older than America. The graphic art is used for Cage's narrative back stories about what has happened before, while the black and white film noir scenes were used for the intimate action scenes. The computer graphics of a flaming skull was much more believable as a skull being on fire - and the Rider's motorcycle, and anything else he rides, looks like it was charred by fire. I like the fact that Cage became a father-figure for Riordan. Too bad Anthony Head had such a small role. Aside from being a good actor, for us fanboys to see, Head would have had a stronger role being cast as the monk at the secondary sanctuary - instead of being the monk in the first sanctuary.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 95 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews