LINCOLN

Twentieth-Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 150 Minutes




Click below to watch the Lincoln trailer.



In Twentieth-Century Fox's Lincoln, United States President Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis, tries to get the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed in Congress to abolish slavery in this country as the American Civil War continues to rage.

Produced and Directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the film covers the final four months of Lincoln's life in 1865. This was a tour de force for Daniel Day-Lewis. For an Englishman, Day-Lewis had quite a presence as the American President Lincoln. I loved it when Lincoln/Day-Lewis started telling his stories. One of my favorite scenes was where Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Bruce McGill, complains that Lincoln/Day-Lewis is going to tell another one of his stories again and walks out as Day-Lewis tells his story. Sally Field's performance as Lincoln's wife Mary Todd Lincoln did not make me feel that she was the emotionally difficult woman that history had made her out to be, but just as a concerned wife and mother - especially when her oldest son Robert Todd Lincoln, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, wants to go enlist into the Army. She is just concerned about her family.

While there were two issues during Lincoln's Presidency, the main story in the movie was the campaign for the necessary Democratic votes in Congress for the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the abolition of slavery in America as a prelude to ending the Civil War. It is curious that Lincoln/Day-Lewis offered Federal jobs in his second term to the various Democratic congressmen in exchange for voting for the Amendment. There were heated debates on both sides in Congress, and even debates within his own cabinet, while Lincoln's people try to secure the votes necessary to pass the Amendment. There was even the joke about eventually giving women the right to vote, to the horror of everyone. During the vote for the Amendment, the names were changed on those in the United States House of Representatives who voted No on the Amendment to spare the family descendants of these representatives. There were several statements to the effect that the world is watching them, but you saw no actual scenes of the outside world. The scenes were totally focused on the American events. It is curious that I have always thought that it was the Democrats that supported the Amendment instead of the Republicans.

There was a battle scene at the beginning of the movie which to me was the most graphic Civil War battle scene I have ever seen, due to the fact that the fighting was basically hand to hand instead of people shooting at each other across a field. Half of the soldiers fighting in the scene were black. This battle scene was basically the only battle scene in the movie, despite what the trailer may imply - as the rest of the movie was about the politics of the 13th Amendment and the little known peace agreement between the Union and the Confederacy. This scene makes me incredibly sad as I realize that these are Americans fighting Americans.

The theme of the movie was Euclid's theory - which Lincoln/Day-Lewis spoke of - which is basically "Things which equal the same thing also equal one another." That was the basis of abolishing slavery. That was like a light bulb for me when Day-Lewis spoke of this. To think of the black people as unequal in the eyes of God was very prejudiced. Although the slaves in the movie acted and were treated more like servants rather than slaves doing drudge work, especially when there were black people for Lincoln/Day-Lewis and Sally Field. Although the pictures of black children of which their son Tad Lincoln, Gulliver McGrath, had with prices on their pictures brought home the idea of slavery. Tommy Lee Jones was great as Republican Abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. There was a scene at the end of the movie that made me understand Thaddeus Stevens/Jones better.

This was a long movie, especially with the long speeches at the beginning of the movie. I know that at least one couple left at the end of the voting for the 13th Amendment - and there was still the rest of the story of Lincoln to be told. The long speeches in the beginning made it difficult for me to concentrate as there was too much information being thrown at me and I was ready to fall asleep, but visually the movie was great under Spielberg's direction. There was a stylistic dream sequence in the beginning of the movie of a style that I have not really seen before. Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address in the beginning of the movie was too Hollywood for me for it to be believable, but it was a nice idea. With all the historical research that was involved, as the end credits indicated of all the museums and archives that were listed,  it makes you wonder how much has been done for Hollywood's sake and how much in depth history has been left out.

I saw the movie at a Black Friday matinee in it's second week. I just realized, it seemed rather appropriate to see it on that day. The theater was full with a more mature audience than the young people who normally go to the movies. At the end of the movie, everyone applauded - and where normally people immediately leave after a movie, there were several people staying behind and just talking about the movie while the end credits rolled. It felt more like a social event. When the movie was over, there was a line outside the door.

Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 150 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews


 

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 164 Minutes



Click below to watch The Dark Knight Rises trailer.



In Warner Bros. The Dark Knight Rises, crippled, reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale, comes out of retirement when terrorist leader Bane, Tom Hardy, threatens to destroy Gotham City - and billionaire Wayne/Bale returns as The Batman.

Sad to say that this film will probably go down in movie history more for incident of the midnight screening shootings at Aurora, Colorado rather than as more as the end of the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale trilogy of the Dark Knight series. It was pretty shocking for me to wake up to this breaking news that day. If I did not have to be at work the next morning, I probably would have been at a midnight screening myself as well. Naturally, the cast and crew had expressed their deepest sympathies to the victims.

The movie itself is more of a dark suspense thriller, instead of a fun superhero action film like The Avengers. In fact, this movie was more like a serious James Bond film rather than as a comic book film. 

In the last of The Dark Knight trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises is written with Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan, and is based on the DC Comics character Batman created by Bob Kane, with influences by the darker Batman comics of "Knightfall" and "No Man's Land." Selina Kyle, Anne Hathaway - as "the Cat" - steals the pearl's of Bale's mother. Since this was more than a simple cat burglary, Bale comes out of his eight year reclusive isolation since the events of The Dark Knight to find out the real reason Hathaway accessed his safe. A corporate takeover of Wayne Enterprises by Board Member Ben Mendelsohn incorporated Hathaway and terrorist Bane/Hardy as Mendelsohn's henchman. Bane/Hardy is formally a part of being with Ra's al Ghul's League of Shadows - just like Wayne/Bale used to be a part of the League. Bane/Hardy has his own agenda from Mendelsohn - assuming the leadership of the League of Shadows, and in taking up Ra's al Ghul's mission to destroy Gotham City.

Although Aaron Eckhart did not appear as his character District Attorney Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight Rises - because Eckhart was killed off in The Dark Knight - Eckhart's pictures and archival footage were used throughout the movie as a reference to his character and of how much Dent/Eckhart still had as an influence to Gotham City. Gary Oldman reprises his role as Commissioner Gordon, who feels guilty in covering up District Attorney Dent/Eckhart's crimes when Dent/Eckhart was the criminal Two-Face. The Joker is never mentioned in The Dark Knight Rises out of respect for Heath Ledger - although, this lack of mentioning The Joker in the movie is ironic considering the events that have surrounded this movie.

Hathaway was very good as Selina Kyle's Catwoman, however she was never referred to as Catwoman in the movie. Hathaway went through intense training to be Catwoman and she says that this was her most physically demanding role to date. I believed that Hathaway could kick-ass while I was watching her - especially when she goes from sweet, innocent girl, to "the Cat." Tom Hardy as Bane also trained heavily for this movie by studying various fighting styles but, with Hardy's face covered by Bane's mask, you feel that it could be anybody under his mask - especially with Hardy's accented voice, just like anybody could be The Batman with Bale's gravelly voice. You don't really get to see any deep acting from Hardy because of the mask. He could have just been some big hulking wrestler under the mask with Hardy doing a voice-over for all we know. At least this time the character of Bane was more like the original comic book character of a general, strategist, and one-man ruthless army to be a villainous equal to Batman mentally as well as being the villainous character physically.

While I expected Joseph Gordon-Levitt having a minor role in the movie - he actually had a larger more integral role than I had expected, becoming Gordon/Oldman's right hand man. Levitt was good, however I felt the character should have been younger. The character should at least be fresh out of the Police Academy with his idealism.  Liam Neeson's cameo reprising his role as Ra's al Ghul was an unexpected pleasure to see. The Pittsburgh Steelers make cameo appearances in the football game.

You need a willing suspension of disbelief to accept Bale's healing of his injuries as I felt there was not sufficient time allowed in the showing of the film's story to allow for proper healing. Even with the doctors Bale had, that is still not enough sense of time in the movie to heal properly. If you accept that there was enough of a period of time for Bale to heal, then the events in the movie happened over a very long period of time which seems excessive to me. Also, the fact that the entire police force is sent underground is unbelievable as that would leave the entire city exposed. I know the Fire Department will not give up all their assets for Mutual Aid as that would leave their own city at risk, so I would not be surprised if the Police Department had something similar in their procedures. The climax of the war between the police and the criminal gangs is also unbelievable, given the firepower involved. There is a similar scene in War Horse that was much more believable. On the other hand, Batman's equipment was great to see in action as he drove around in them. Instead of a batmobile, this time he has a batplane. Although it was sad to see what happens to some of the equipment, it was still great to see. As a veteran cop tells his rookie partner, "sit back, you're in for a show."

The film was a long movie. I felt it could have been trimmed a little in the second half, just before the climax. As it is, this is the longest film Nolan has ever directed. There was also a lot of exposition in the movie, exposition of the plot rather than dialog. One, maybe two, exposition scenes I could except, like Michael Caine's concerned fantasy about the welfare for Bale while Bale was away for years for the first time. Cutting out some of this exposition could have trimmed the movie.

This is definitely the end of the Dark Knight trilogy, but the end of the movie is a positive ending left open for a new generation, a new direction for the next series of movies.

The audience I saw The Dark Knight Rises with applauded and cheered at the end and it was a pretty full house for a matinee, so not many people were intimidated by the events. Although as I was going up to the theater, a group was also going to see the film. A family man with his kids was coming out of the theater. The group asked him, "Did you see The Dark Knight?" The family man jokingly said, "no, he did not want to get shot." I was wondering if the events would hurt or help the film, or have no effect at all, to what the box office will take. We shall see as Warner Bros. will not release the opening weekend result until later "out of respect for the victims and their families." So while I think most people will live out their lives and not let the Aurora tragedy make them live in fear, it will take a while for the rest of us to get over it and heal.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 164 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews