X-Men: Days of Future Past

Twentieth Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running Time: 131 Minutes


Click below to watch a movie  trailer of X-Men: Days of Future Past




In Twentieth Century Fox's X-Men: Days of Future Past, the near future has most mutants, and the humans who helped them, placed in internment camps, while the rest of the mutants are hunted down and killed by mutant hunting robot Sentinels. In order to save what's left of the mutant X-Men - Professor Charles Xavier/Patrick Stewart and Magneto/Ian McKellen sends Wolverine/Hugh Jackman 50 years into the past to change history.

After traveling back into the past, Wolverine/Jackman returns home to a run-down Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters to try to convince a young broken and disheveled Xavier/James McAvoy to free and recruit Magneto/Michael Fassbender from the Pentagon and join them to stop Mystique/Jennifer Lawrence from changing history.

The movie is basically The Avengers meets Captain America: The Winter Soldier and just as political as Captain America. The seventh film in the X-Men series, and the third X-Men film Directed and Produced by Bryan Singer, X-Men: Days of Future Past is based on the X-Men story line by Chris Claremont and John Byrne in the comic book The Uncanny X-Men issues #141-142, "Days of Future Past" published in 1981. The first issue of the story line was voted in 2001 as the 25th greatest Marvel comic. It is great that Claremont was brought in as a consultant to this film.

While I have not read "Days of Future Past" since it was published in 1981, I am pretty sure the movie followed the story fairly closely with some minor changes - or major changes depending on your point of view, since in the original story it was Kitty Pryde/Sprite who went back in time. But Wolverine/Jackman is the more popular protagonist character to the audience and can be used as an ageless immortal time travel character since he does not age. Also in the comics, the key time character was Senator Robert Kelly who was the head of an anti-mutant platform. In the movie, the key time character is cyberneticist Bolivar Trask/Peter Dinklage who created the robot Sentinels, since Senator Kelly/Bruce Davison appeared in X-Men.

With Bryan Singer's casting of Dinklage as Bolivar Trask, there could have been a lot of characterization developed on Trask and to why he had created the Sentinels. As a writer, I would have asked Dinklage's opinions of why Dinklage himself would have done something like creating the Sentinels. Too bad there was hardly any characterization developed for Trask/Dinklage. A new enemy and a new weapon for this war is not enough characterization.

The X-Men from the future you never get to know at all, aside from their powers. As a fan of the X-Men, I knew who these future X-Men all were - but even then, I have not read the books since the eighty's and I do not know if these characters have been prominent in the books since then. So the general public would most likely not have any connection to these future X-Men aside from appreciating their powers - which were pretty kick ass. The movie is basically Wolverine's/Jackman's movie. In the books, the dystopian near-future was the year 2013, which was last year as of this writing in 2014. It is good to know that near-future did not come to past in this reality.

Several people from the previous X-Men movies reprise their roles, like Nicholas Hoult/Beast, with most of the people being in cameo roles. The movie includes footage from the previous X-Men movie for these characters - as well as people appearing in some surprising live-action cameos.  The new character in the movie, who was also the most fun character in the movie, was Pietro Maximoff/Evan Peters. Too bad Maximoff/Peters did not have a larger role to offset some of the heavy drama that would play out in the rest of the movie. I am looking forward to Maximoff/Peters future connection to Magneto/Fassbender. It was sad to hear from Magneto/Michael Fassbender that several characters from the X-Men movies had been killed off. It was heartbreaking to hear Magneto/Fassbender yell at Charles Xavier/James McAvoy because it was Xavier/McAvoy as the one who had abandoned those who were lost. Mystique's/Jennifer Lawrence's character is the one character in the movie who was the most tragic after all the things that had happened to her, although we never really get the reason why Mystique/Lawrence was really after Trask/Dinklage aside from the obvious. The real reason is too subtle to pick up. Halle Berry's/Storm's character presence was reduced in this film due to Barry's pregnancy.

I liked the DNA graphics that were shown during the opening credits, which stresses the idea of genetics, leading into the theme of mutants. The prototype Sentinels in the past look just like the ones of which I am familiar with from the comics, and visually look pretty cool, while the Sentinels from the future are the ones that are the most dangerous. While X-Men: First Class used historical footage of President John F. Kennedy as part of the film to help make it believable, X-Men: Days of Future Past casts actor Mark Camacho as an historical figure. Using an actor for this historical figure loses credibility to the reality of the role, especially considering everyone's perceptions of this historical figure. The international implications of mutants as well as the news coverage of the mutants added to the reality of the situation outside of this figure.

There was no Stan Lee cameo in this movie, so don't bother looking for him, like I was doing. You can concentrate on watching the movie instead and not worry about missing something important like Lee.

While the events of this movie might change the events of previous X-Men films, Singer believes in multiverses and that certain events would be part of the history of alternate universes. This will help the fans keep from being so upset that things keep changing. I know it would help keep me from being so upset. There are a lot of good stories from the alternate universes in the 50 years of X-Men history.

I saw this movie on an opening weekend matinee and the theater was pretty full. At the end of the movie, the audience applauded. While most of the audience left, those who had stayed while waiting for the closing credits scene were sitting around talking about X-Men as the end titles credits music played. The closing scene character, while different from the drawings from the comics - so much so that I did not recognize the character, suggests the story that I am looking forward to in the next X-Men film - X-Men: Apocalypse coming out in 2016. I should point out, that while the scene at the end of the credits in the movie The Wolverine teased at what was going to happen in X-Men: Days of Future Past, that scene does not appear in Days of Future Past.

Rated PG-13 for violence, language, and nudity. Running Time: 131 Minutes.

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

MOVIE 43

Relativity Media

Rated R

Running time: 94 minutes



 Click below to watch the Movie 43 trailer.

 

In Relativity Media's Movie 43, filmmaker Dennis Quaid tries to convince movie producer Greg Kinnear to buy his movie script. As Quaid does his pitch of what the movie is about, the film turns into a series of 13 short raunchy films and commercials of what Quaid's movie is supposed to be about.

Make no mistake, this is a raunchy film that will have something in the movie to offend everybody. While everyone complains that this is a bad movie, the audience I saw the movie with was laughing throughout the entire movie - so there is an audience that would appreciate this movie, like me. I will admit, however, that the short film I was uncomfortable with was "Machine Kids" which was about children working inside machines. This was especially relevant to me, as we had just replaced a numbers of copiers at work.

While Quaid did lead the movie from one segment to another initially to describe his film - the many film shorts, each one directed by a different director, eventually ran into each other making me feel like I was at home watching TV with commercials coming on. I had to remember - I am in a theater watching a movie.

Apparently the framing story of the movie is different in other countries. Instead of a movie pitch, the films are connected by teenagers searching for the most banned movie in the world apparently online. As a result of which, the title of the movie refers to the forty-third rule of the Internet - you can find anything on the Internet if you are willing to look for it long enough.

While everyone laughed at the movie, no one laughed at the Hollywood jokes except for me. That was mainly because the Hollywood jokes were not raunchy, but more of a satire on Hollywood which only the Hollywood industry people like me would get.

The movie had a lot of stars in the movie. I think one reasons the producers were able to get such an ensemble of stars to act in this movie is because the actors might have liked the idea of doing a short film for their segment, similar along the lines of a student film, which will not take up a lot of time for them to do. Although apparently Richard Gere tried to get out of being in this movie and that the actor's agents did not want their big client actors working for scale. I can imagine how Halle Berry's agents would feel having their beautiful client winding up in huge ugly makeup, or Hugh Jackman with his makeup.

When the end credits start to roll concerning the various short films - stick around as there is one more short film to be shown after the preliminary end credits that stars Elizabeth Banks and a raunchy animated pet cat, which is basically a raunchier version of the movie Ted. Actually when the preliminary end credits started to roll, I felt that the movie was short. The extra short film at the very end filled out the movie, making the entire movie feel like the right length of time to be watching a movie.

Rated R for sexual situations, language, nudity, violence. Running time: 94 minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Review
 

Les Miserables

Universal Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 157 Minutes



Click below to watch the Les Miserables trailer.



In Universal Pictures Les Miserables, former prisoner Jean Valjean, Hugh Jackman, has been on the run from policeman Javert, Russell Crowe, for decades because Valjean/Jackman broke parole for stealing a loaf of bread for Jackman's starving nephew.

This dramatic movie musical based on the theatrical stage musical of Les Miserables by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg  - which has been performing world-wide for over 25 years as of 2012, and is the longest running musical in the world - is a musical where 99% of the dialog is sung. As a result, you have to really listen to the lyrics of the songs to follow the plot of the movie - which is based on Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables, considered to be one of the longest books ever written. What is great is that instead of listening to a playback of the music and then singing the songs, the actors actually sang the songs while they were acting - thus giving more of a performance for the camera as they sing. Set during the time of the Paris Uprising of 1832, otherwise known as the June Rebellion, the story of Les Miserables follows Valjean/Jackman as he transforms from escaped parolee to prominent mayor who undertakes an obligation to rescue the daughter, Cosette - a young Isabelle Allen and Amanda Seyfried - of his former factory employee Fantine, Anne Hathaway, who was thrown out on the street. Although it was a little confusing for me and took me some time to realize that she was being ostracized by the rest of the factory employees for Fantine/Hathaway sending money to her illegitamate child Cosette/young Isabelle Allen.

In all these years, I had never seen the musical Les Miserables or read the book. I have only heard clips of the music and knew of the general story of Javert's manhunt of pursuing Valjean. While my musical theater family and friends were not happy with the stars singing performances in the movie - and with good reason, especially with Crowe's singing - they loved the ensemble cast. It seems like the producers just got stars to make the movie so they can have a greater movie audience. Personally, I accepted the stars, except for Crowe's singing. At least the movie did have some of the Les Miserables stars from the musical production performing in the movie, and the ensemble cast throughout the movie were great. Several of the ensemble cast had performed in various stage productions of Les Miserables, so it was great to have them performing in the movie.

I was blown away by Hathaway's emotional performance of the song "I Dreamed A Dream." I could feel her pain of hitting rock bottom in her life and never climbing out of the hole that she is in - even if her singing might have been a little rough, but that roughness added to the emotion of the song for me as Hathaway did not want to sing it pretty considering the scene. Hathaway supposedly blew everyone away at her audition, leaving them in tears, and I would not be surprised if she had used this song for that audition. Hathaway also cut her hair and lost weight for the role as the sickly Fantine. Make no mistake, this is not a pretty Broadway movie - but a dark historical movie, dealing with the various castes of historical France as well as the bloody Paris Uprising of 1832 from which Hugo's novel is about. Having Hathaway's mother, stage actress Kate McCauley Hathaway, being the first Fantine in the First U.S. National Tour of Les Miserables makes a nice continuity touch with Hathaway portraying Fantine in the movie. Young Isabelle Allen as the young Cosette was very good for her age when she performed. Young Daniel Huttlestone was also good as the young Revolutionary urchin Gavroche.

Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as Samantha Barks/Eponine's parents - and cruel guardians of the now motherless Cosette/Isabelle Allen - added to the comic relief to the movie, which was a nice contrast to the darkness of the rest of the movie, thus giving their part of the movie a Sweeney Todd type of feel to the movie.

I felt the sudden romantic triangle with Cosette/Seyfried, Marius/Eddie Redmayne, and Eponine/Barks was an obligatory love story - especially when Marius/Redmayne spots Cosette/Seyfried across the way and it is love at first sight, which totally made this plot point unreal for me. Having Cosette/Seyfried losing the hardness of her childhood and becoming seemingly innocent again was also unreal for me. I felt she should have kept her cynisism when initially meeting Marius/Redmayne. But eventually this romantic triangle became an integral story plot to the rest of the movie and made sense, however it did take awhile for this love story to become acceptable to me. I was not happy that the revolutionaries were too well off to be downtrodden citizens, especially Marius/Redmayne with his rich uncle. The revolutionaries were basically liberal college students protesting against the conservative establishment rather than being real downtrodden citizens. The revolutionaries became acceptable to me when they were singing their song of revolution "Do You Hear the People Sing" with the citizens, but otherwise the revolutionaries were still liberal college students instead of poor French citizens.

I was surprised that the movie was not in 3D, but Director Tom Hooper felt that it would not receive a wide enough audience if the movie was in 3D. From the opening shots, the movie would have been great in 3D and would have been one of the first 3D musicals - if not the first 3D musical. As it is, the movie was very visual for material originally developed for the theatrical stage. The Paris Uprising in the movie were actual battles, and not a light show such as shown in the 25th anniversary concert that I had seen on PBS, although the movie uprising was not as graphic as a real uprising would have been. Having Javert/Crowe leading the French soldiers seemed quite appropriate as the symbol of the oppressive establishment, especially as he goes after Valjean/Jackman. What I did not like about the story was that there was no reference to Valjean/Jackman's nephew or sister years later. They were the reason he went to prison. What happened to them? Instead of being with his family, Valjean/Jackman creates a new family with Cosette/Seyfried.

With Valjean/Jackman encountering the Bishop Colm Wilkinson, thus experiencing compassion for perhaps the first time in his life, Valjean/Jackman begins his journey to redemption for his sins of being a thief. This religious encounter basically transforms the rest of Valjean/Jackman's life as he takes on numerous responsibilities for himself and for other people's lives. Valjean/Jackman's redemption is perhaps my favorite theme of the movie - even as Valjean/Jackman struggles with moral consequences, especially when someone is arrested believed to be him - as Valjean/Jackman continuously turns to the God for help and I am glad the movie ended with this theme. I will admit that at the end of the movie, I teared up - which I think was mainly due to this theme, and I am glad of that.

After the movie was over, the audience applauded.

Rated PG-13 for violence and sexual situations. Running time: 157 Minutes.

Click below to watch another musical trailer of Les Miserables.




Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

 Follow us on Facebook: Pancho's Movie Reviews

Real Steel

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 127 Minutes

















Click below to watch the Real Steel trailer.



Set in the near future, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Real Steel has down on his luck ex-boxer Hugh Jackman using the last of his money getting fighting gigs for his second-hand robot boxers - which gets trashed. When Jackson gets temporary custody of his orphaned son Dakota Goyo, Jackson reluctantly uses Goyo's boxing robot to earn more cash as he travels from city to city searching for his next boxing match.

Because the money went from human boxers to robot boxers for more violence, Jackman searches for parts to make another robot in a junkyard. After inadvertently saving Goyo's life in the junkyard, Goyo scavenges the remains of the small sparring robot Atom, that saved Goyo's life, from the junkyard. When Jackman's former girlfriend Evangeline Lilly overhauls Atom for Goyo, Goyo soon persuades Jackman to coordinate Atom's boxing skills. Built to take punches, Atom soon goes up the ranks of both the underground robot league and the World Robot League.

This movie is basically The Champ with robots. Or to get a better picture, it is The Champ, Rocky, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and Robocop - without the criminal violence. This is basically a remake of The Twilight Zone's episode Steel, adapted from the 1956 short story by Richard Matheson. With Goyo in the film, it is a very cute human film - but very predictable. As Jackman's son, Goyo holds his own against Jackman.

The filmmakers wanted to make this movie in the "near future." Because this is a "science fiction" film, the opening shots can be confusing as it is set in a normal-looking Mid-West. You might think you are in the wrong theater - or rented the wrong movie - if you have not seen the movie before, because the filmmakers wanted the movie to be very familiar to the audience. The film being familiar is also evidenced by the various product placements, including Hewlett Packard and ESPN.

The robot boxing fights were motion-captured from professional boxers - who were supervised by world boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard. Leonard's training also made Jackman's boxing performance believable. A part of the boxing scenes is like a computerized version of the old toy "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots" by Marx/Mattel. The Rocky movies have a big influence on the film, with the final fight scene basically being a blow-by-blow scene from Rocky IV. The operatic championship music was by composer Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo fame.

Rated PG-13 for language and violence. Running time 127 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.