Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Marvel Entertainment

Rated PG-13

Running time: 136 Minutes

Click below to watch the movie trailer of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.



In Marvel Entertainment's Captain America: The Winter Solder - Steve Rogers/Chris Evans - also known as America's Hero, Captain America - struggles against a high ranking conspiracy as well as a Cold War "ghost" assassin - The Winter Soldier/Sebastian Stan.

In the latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Washington D.C. and the World Security Council has the covert agency of S.H.I.E.L.D. empowered with the hardware for a Project designed to preemptively eliminate threats after the events of The Avengers. The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury/Samuel L. Jackson, soon discovers a conspiracy after the recovery of classified data - and soon becomes a target from police disguised assailants, as well as the Winter Soldier/Stan. With the help of the Black Widow/Scarlett Johansson and his new friend, Pararescue war veteran and PTSD counselor Sam Wilson/Anthony Mackie - otherwise known as The Falcon - Captain America/Evans goes after the people responsible for attacking Fury/Jackson, the major conspirators and the Winter Soldier - who has a secret connection to Rogers/Evans.

With this film being more of a political thriller, I think that this is the best of the Marvel movies and debuted to a record breaking $96.2 million in North America as of 2014. While Captain America: The Winter Soldier was mostly a serious drama, most of the light comedy in the movie was of  the Black Widow/Johansson trying to set up Rogers/Evans with a date. This is even funnier when you consider that Captain America/Evans is such a piece of Americana that he is now an exhibit at a Smithsonian Museum. For Stan Lee fans, Lee's cameo is as a guard in the Smithsonian Museum.

Being a political thriller, the movie deals with hard core political issues, such as disorder and war, that deal with today rather than the more simplistic issues of disorder and war that Steve Rogers/Evans grew up with in the 1940's. As Rogers/Evans says, "This isn't freedom, this is fear." Having friends of mine who very liberal and are into conspiracy theories, the ideas in this movie hit pretty home to me, just as these ideas hit pretty home to Captain America/Evans. The scenes of the fake police using S.W.A.T. tactics against Fury/Jackson was especially disturbing for me to watch, as I have had classes with the police as a Citizens Academy graduate. Robert Redford as a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official and World Security Council member as well as Fury/Jackson's mentor is an homage to Redford's 1970's thrillers and made the movie especially believable. Having bystanders running away to safety in the background in the various action scenes helped to ground this movie into reality and not just some comic book movie with no consequences.

I liked how we got to know more about Fury/Jackson and Rogers/Evans in this movie than we had in the other movies. Getting to know about Black Widow/Johansson and Falcon/Mackie made these four characters more of a family to me, despite their dysfunctional backgrounds. The relationship between political opposites Black Widow/Johansson and Captain America/Evans was quite interesting and pretty hot, despite the fact that these two character are supposed to get involved with other characters in the Marvel Universe, such as Hawkeye/Jeremy Renner and Agent 13/Emily VanCamp.

I saw the movie during a matinee and the theater was pretty full. The audience reacted positively to the kick-ass action. Seeing Captain America/Evans using his shield as both shield and weapon during the action scenes was pretty awesome. Black Widow/Johansson kicking ass is a given in the movie. A most welcome surprise is that Wilson/Mackie's action scenes as the Falcon were just as good, especially since the idea of the Falcon seems pretty cartoony in the comics to me and could have looked really bad. After watching how they did the Falcon with his exoskeleton wing pack in the movie, I am pretty confident that Marvel will treat all their comic book characters right visually. This is especially important as the Falcon/Mackie is an African-American superhero which is why Mackie wanted to do the movie in the first place, for his son and nephews and nieces. The S.H.I.E.L.D. technology was pretty awesome and formidable, particularly the helicarriers. The movie looks more realistic and more impressive to me especially during the action scenes, which is mainly because the movie was done mostly as live action with very little computer graphics involved.

Since everything in the Marvel universe is connected, the big scale events in Captain America: The Winter Soldier also affect the events in the TV show Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which is about a team in the vast covert agency of S.H.I.E.L.D. under the direction of Agent Coulson/Clark Gregg. After watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I now understand the events of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. better, which will deal with the consequences of the movie on the team's relationships on a very personal, intimate scale. Since Coulson/Gregg is so involved into Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I miss having him appear in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and having Coulson/Gregg relate to his hero Captain America/Evans. Despite the lack of Coulson/Gregg, several S.H.I.E.L.D. characters, as well as several characters from Captain America: The First Avenger reprise their roles in this movie. An Easter Egg mention of Stephen Strange in the movie was of particular delight to me. From the lack of reaction, I think I was one of the very few people in the theater audience who knows the comic book character name of Stephen Strange - who is the title character in the new upcoming Marvel movie Dr. Strange.

There were only two movie trailers shown before Captain America: The Winter Soldier in the theater that I was in, Guardians of the Galaxy and Maleficent, both of which come from Marvel/Disney and both movies are movies that I really want to see when they come out.

I liked that during the end credits there were comic graphics of the movie with an iconic comic graphic of the stars in their roles of the movie. There are two movie scenes during the end credits. The first scene, in which Joss Wheedon directed, is after the credits for the movie's stars have been finished, in which the scene refers to Avengers: Age of Ultron. Most of the audience in my theater left after that scene - but there is another movie scene later after all of the credits at the end of the movie have been finished. The people staying for the rest of the credits were discussing Marvel as I was reading the credits and enjoying the music from the movie. The rest of the audience who stayed all went quiet when the final scene finally aired. I felt this final movie scene was quite moving for the movie.

The very last message before the Marvel logo appears is: Captain America will return in "Avengers: Age of Ultron."

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.




Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

THE WOLVERINE

Twentieth Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 126 Minutes



Click below to watch The Wolverine movie trailer. 



In Twentieth-Century Fox/Marvel Entertainment's The Wolverine, mutant hermit Wolverine - Hugh Jackman - is brought out of isolation by Rila Fukushima to have her industrialist employer dying from cancer Hal Yamanouchi reward Jackman for saving Yamanouchi's life years ago during WWII.

In a sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand - featuring the Marvel Comics character Wolverine, and based on the 1982 limited series Wolverine by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller - Producer and Star Jackman/Wolverine is being tormented by hallucinations and has secluded himself in the woods as a result. When Fukushima locates him, Jackman reluctantly goes with her to Japan and gets immersed into the Japanese samurai/ronin culture as he gets involved in protecting Yamanouchi's granddaughter Tao Okamoto from deadly Yakuza samurai.

I liked that they covered the Japanese culture in this X-Men Origins movie like they have had covered in the comic book and that the wild man Jackman struggles to be a part of the Japanese culture. Jackman is also a fan of the comic book and the Japanese saga and you can see this fandom of the book being used in the movie. You see Jackman in action as The Wolverine which was pretty awesome with his admantium claws and mutant healing ability, even if he does get his ass kicked sometimes. Having four strong women in the film, including Svetlana Khodchenkova, and Wolverine/Jackman's relationships with them in the movie is great.

Comic book creator and Executive Producer Stan Lee does not have his typical cameo in this movie, but there is a bottle of whiskey named Stanley's Whiskey. This is the first X-Men film to be released in 3D and IMAX. The film was scheduled to be released in Japan in mid-September out of respect for the August anniversaries of the nuclear attacks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of which Nagasaki has prominent scenes in the movie. I would have preferred the Silver Samurai to be of human size than of giant robot size.

At the end of the movie during the end credits, there is a scene which refers to the next movie X-Men: Days of Future Past.

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

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews

MAN OF STEEL

Warner Bros.

Running time: 1:43 Minutes

Rated PG-13



Click below to watch the Man of Steel movie trailer.




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews



 

IRON MAN 3

Paramount Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 130 Minutes



Click below to watch the Iron Man 3 movie trailer.



In Paramount Pictures, in association with Walt Disney Pictures, Iron Man 3 - Tony Stark/Robert Downey, Jr. goes up against the terrorist the Mandarin/Ben Kingsley and the scientific conglomerate Advanced Idea Mechanics - A.I.M.

Written and Directed by Shane Black, this sequel is more like a dramatic thriller version of Iron Man than the others, although once the kid Ty Simpkins showed up, the movie started to get a little cute and cartoony. Letting Black direct allowed Iron Man Director/Star/Executive Producer Jon Favreau to concentrate on acting and have more screen time. I have been a fan of Black since Lethal Weapon, especially since I shot an interview with his writer brother Terry Black.

After a New Years Eve party in 1999 with botanist Rebecca Hall, billionaire, playboy, genius Stark/Downey, Jr. meets A.I.M. scientist Aldrich Killian/Guy Pearce in a hotel who enthusiastically wants to work and form a partnership with Stark/Downey, Jr. who promptly blows off the innocent Killian/Pearce.

Years later, as a restless Stark/Downey, Jr. constructs dozens of Iron Man suits - including the ability to mentally control them, a series of bombings by the terrorist the Mandarin/Ben Kingsley leaves Stark Industries former Stark/Downey, Jr. bodyguard, now security chief Happy Hogan/Jon Favreau seriously injured during one such encounter with the Mandarin's/Kingsley's henchman James Badge Dale. Stark/Downey, Jr. declares on the news revenge on the Mandarin/Kingsley.

I liked the fact that there was a much deeper relationship with Pepper Potts/Gweneth Paltrow and Stark/Downey, Jr. despite the love triangle with Stark's/Downey Jr.'s obsession with the Iron Man suits. I also liked the appearance of Rescue. Mark Ruffalo's uncredited appearance was cute.

I had mixed feelings about the Mandarin/Kingsley. I thought Kingsley's acting was good, I just had mixed feelings about what they did with the character of the Mandarin, who in the comics is Iron Man's oldest enemy. Although I did not really mind the Mandarin not really being Chinese, I did not like what they did to the character. Also there are basically three villains in the movie. I personally feel that there should only be one villain in a movie, although I might accept a henchman in a movie if he was not as strong as the villain. I do, however, like that all the concepts in the movie are from the comics, especially from the "Extremis" story arc by Warren Ellis. I will admit that there was a lot of the story that was not made clear to me, until I had read the plot on Wikipedia. 

There are references to the movie The Avengers - but nothing blatant and not really relevant to the plot of the Iron Man 3 movie, so you do not have to have seen The Avengers in order to enjoy the movie. Although Stark's/Downey, Jr.'s near death experience in The Avengers was affecting him in Iron Man 3.

I have always felt the name War Machine for Stark's/Downey, Jr.'s best friend James Rhodes/Don Cheadle was too dark and militaristic for me and I much preferred the red, white and blue Iron Patriot name that was given to Rhodes/Cheadle as the government's "American hero." It is a shame that William Sadler did not have much of a presence, let alone much of a part, as the President of the United States of America as Sadler normally does have a presence. Miguel Ferrer is appropriate as the Vice President and had more characterization with having a daughter. While I liked the fact that A.I.M - Advanced Idea Mechanics - was in the movie, A.I.M. is really an organization of scientists which I missed as an evil organization instead of the organization being a company run by Aldrich Killian/Guy Pearce. I also never got the sense that he was physically disabled. I only really learned of that from reading the Wikipedia article.

For Stan Lee fans - so you can concentrate on watching the movie, instead of looking for him - Lee will appear in a scene where he is a beauty contestant judge.

At the end of the movie, after the end credits, there is a scene with Stark/Downey, Jr. that actually ties in with the opening scenes of the movie.

The film scored the second highest opening weekend of all time as of May, 2013 - behind The Avengers.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 130 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Review

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION

Paramount Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 110 Minutes



Click below to watch the G.I. Joe: Retaliation trailer.



In Paramount Pictures G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the G.I. Joe team has been wiped out and the few survivors, Dwayne Johnson, D.J. Cotrona, and Adrianne Palicki go underground determined to find out why.

In this sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation seems like a more adult version of of the prequel G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - despite the James Bond type of plot. A crawl at the beginning of the movie introduces the concept of G.I. Joe with Channing Tatum in command. Tatum and Johnson's relationship was great, not just as Joes, but as friends as well. The ninja scenes with Storm Shadow - Byung-hun Lee - and with Snake Eyes - Ray Park - and Jinx - Elodie Yung -  were great, especially when compared with the military action scenes. My favorite scene was with Storm Shadow/Lee and Snake Eyes/Park when they first meet each other. While Snake Eyes is not supposed to talk, I am looking forward to when martial artist stuntman Park actually gets a speaking part.

After a mission in Pakistan to confiscate nuclear warheads from terrorists, the Joes are wiped out in a military strike by Cobra. Storm Shadow/Lee rescues Cobra Commander, Luke Bracey with the voice by Robert Baker, from prison - while Snake Eyes/Park and Storm Shadow/Lee's cousin Jinx/Yung go after Storm Shadow/Lee. The Joe survivors from the military strike seek help from the original Joe - General Joseph Colton, Bruce Willis, in order to stop Cobra.

I have always felt that with Jonathan Pryce as a Welshman, Pryce was not an appropriate actor to be President of the United States. Certainly, Pryce did not have the presence to be President and was a little goofy. It was hard for me to believe Pryce as the leader of the free world. There is a worldwide presence to the movie that gives the movie more of a scope than what you might think of when watching this movie and adds to the James Bond feeling of the movie. The use of orbital kinetic bombardment weapons is interesting, especially since the military concept has been around since the 1950's but has never been implemented as far as I know. After having just watched the movie Olympus Has Fallen, the Presidential scenes in G.I. Joe: Retaliation in comparison to that movie were very cartoony.

General Joe Colton - Bruce Willis - from whom the Joes were names after, was not as strong a character as I was expecting. I was really expecting him to take over command of the rest of the Joes when they contacted him. Especially since the Joes were named after him Joe/Willis, I was expecting some kind of possessiveness from Willis about the Joes - as well as a little history about the Joes. Johnson was still basically the leader of the Joes, even with Joe/Willis joining the team. With very few characters from the original movie making an appearance in this one, it would have been nice for Joe/Willis reminiscing about the Joes he has served with. And the friends that Willis supposedly brought in as support to the surviving Joe  team were not seen.

The Cobras were not the super-soldiers from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but just a military force and was not such a menacing force as you would think. The ninjas were more menacing, and frankly more fun to watch. Cobra Commander was not a major character in the movie either. The movie could have been made without him and would not have changed a thing. I felt the guards where Cobra Commander was being held were too old to be prison guards and made me glad to see what happened to them. The resolution between Snake Eyes/Park and Storm Shadow/Lee is interesting, and I wonder what will happen between them in the next movie.

The movie apparently did so well during it's opening weekend, that the studio has reportedly commissioned a third G.I. Joe movie.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 110 Minutes.

Click below to watch my favorite trailer of G.I. Joe: Retaliation.


Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.
 

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 136 Minutes




Click below to watch the The Amazing Spider-Man trailer.



In Columbia Pictures/Marvel Enterprises The Amazing Spider-Man, high school nerd Peter Parker - Andrew Garfield - is bitten by a genetically modified laboratory spider, and becomes The Amazing Spider-Man.

This reboot of Spider-man in 2012 is released on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the first appearance of Spider-Man from the comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 that was published in 1962, which was Amazing Fantasy's last issue. Based on the comic book character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the movie The Amazing Spider-Man goes back to the origin of Spider-Man - with Ditko's early comics work as an influence on the film. Also, the movie concentrates more on Parker's/Garfield's mysteriously missing parents - who were killed in a plane crash - than was shown in previous movies. Parker/Garfield soon learns that his mysterious scientist father had worked with his fellow scientist, Dr. Curt Connors - Rhys Ifans. This is the first of the Spiderman movies that I can recall that they concentrated so much on Parker's parents. Actually a lot of the elements in this movie harkens back to the original origin from the comics, so I felt rather comfortable with this remake of Spider-Man. While politically incorrect - sports jock Flash Thompson, Chris Zylka, beating up weakling Parker/Garfield is straight from the comic book, although Garfield should have been more of a geeky push-over during this scene. The movie, however, integrated spiders much more into the movie as a major plot point than was indicated from the original origin story, in order to create a biocable from genetically modified spiders. Thus, Parker/Garfield being inundated by spiders in the laboratory was very disturbing to me. I think part of Spider-Man being my favorite superhero is for me to overcome my phobia of insects.

Since the movie was set during Parker's high school days, I did not feel that Garfield was socially inept enough as Parker when he was in high school, but I did feel that Garfield was smart enough to be the science geek and well represented the mature Parker as he became Spider-Man. Garfield also had the playful sense of humor as Spider-Man that was needed for his jokes, especially since he is wearing a skin-tight red and blue leotard. There was a drastic difference in Garfield's abilities after he was bitten by the spider, although the depiction of Garfield's spider-sense was barely noticeable. My favorite Spider-Man scenes - aside from his continually gagging people with his webbing - was the scene where he was caught by the police, and he used his kick-ass spider powers to escape. Unfortunately, the spider-sense Parker/Garfield has just makes it seem like Parker/Garfield only has extremely fast reflexes, instead of reacting to danger.

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy was not just a damsel in distress, but a smart and kick ass lady who falls in love with Parker/Garfield. Denis Leary was great as Stone's father, police Captain Stacy. In fact an old friend of Leary's thought, when he first met Leary, "I thought you  were George Stacy!" Stacy/Leary is determined to go after the masked vigilante Spider-Man - although Stone's and Leary's relationship with Spider-Man was reversed in the movie as compared to the comics. Leary's and Garfield's dinner scene debating their vigilante beliefs showed their passions on what they believe is right. This was one of my favorite scenes as it shows their diametric beliefs and stresses one of the major themes of the movie.

Martin Sheen was great and well cast as the loving Uncle Ben, as well as Sally Field being great as the loving Aunt May, although Field was not the frail, invalid that Aunt May is typically being known for. May/Field continually coming across Parker/Garfield who is all beat up and not wondering why he is always hurt like that after being such a loving surrogate mother to him was unrealistic to me. Such a lack of confrontation from his "parent" about Garfield always getting beat up while he is out being Spider-man had lessened the dramatic impact of Parker/Garfield's family home life to me. As it is, Field did not seem to me like she was taking care of Garfield like the parent of a high school teenager. Rhys Ifans as the one-armed Dr. Connors was nice enough as Connors but, without his family from the comics supporting him, Connors loses a lot of his characterization and sympathy - especially when Connors is forced to develop a cure for his gravely ill boss, Norman Osborn.

The effects and makeup of the villain, The Lizard, were good - although I would rather not have had The Lizard with the capability of speech just so we can accentuate his bestiality. I think The Lizard would have been scarier without the ability to speak. The Lizard was motion-captured, so his movements were believable. Having Garfield feeling responsible for stopping the Lizard goes back to Garfield's guilt of letting Uncle Ben/Sheen die. It was great Ifans insisted on doing his own stuntwork in the movie. Garfield studied how spiders move, and as a result he looked much more believable as Spider-Man in his spider movements than in previous movies. The graphics for Spider-man's webbing from Garfield's web-shooters - of which science geek Garfield had developed - were much more believable in that they looked like webs and as a result, both Garfield's movements and his webbing looked much more like what was in the comic books. Garfield's web-swinging is more visual as well, like in the comics. Garfield's web-swinging gives the city and the movie more of a 3-D feel. The film's action scenes were also shot in 3-D, while the rest of the movie was converted from 2-D. As a result, the action scenes had things flying out at you - as well as the stunts being performed on rigs flying out at you - which made the action even more interesting as a 3-D movie and worth the price for 3-D for me. There was also a Spider-Man pin given out, while supplies last.

OzCorp's holographic security system, seemed very high-tech - until Garfield was able to copy the code. At my work, we have to have card and code in order to gain access to our building - and we are not in a high-tech security industry like at OzCorp - so the ease of Garfield breaking into OzCorp's security ruined any type of credibility with me. Having Stone using a security card at OzCorp seemed anachronistic and inconsistent in the movie compared to the high-tech graphic security locks, although the card and code adds more security to the system. I personally wonder how they are going to bring Norman Osborn into the series - because, as of right now, he is mysteriously ill. My guess is that some experiment to cure him will turn Norman Osborn into the Green Goblin, or maybe even the Hobgoblin. I would love to see a Green Goblin vs. Hobgoblin battle.

I did not recognize C. Thomas Howell as the father of the kid Spider-Man rescues, but Howell had a significant part for what is basically a walk-on role. For comic book fans, the cameo of Stan Lee is in the middle of the movie during a Lizard battle in the school library. The guy behind me was laughing very hard at this scene. He was obviously, like I am, a big fan of Stan the Man.

There is a scene in the middle of the end credits that hints more of the story for Parker's/Garfield's parents for the sequel.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 136 Minutes.

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