LEFT BEHIND

Freestyle Releasing

Rated PG-13

Running time: 110 Minutes

















Click below to watch a movie trailer of Left Behind.



In Freestyle Releasing's Left Behind, Nicholas Cage is an airline pilot - who is one of the few people left behind after millions of people disappear all over the world.

In this Christian film Directed by Vic Armstrong, and based on the Left Behind book series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, is based on the "end times" described in the Bible and that the people who believed in Christ have been Raptured and taken up to Heaven. While they never used the word "Rapture" in the movie, the characters in the movie - especially Cage - did discuss that this must have been the circumstances of what had happened to the missing people as there was a religious connection to all of them.

While the event was not graphic, I thought it was very suspenseful for me when the event happened, and I got the chills at it's suddenness. I was also crying as all the people left behind, especially the mothers, were worried about their loved ones. This was especially heartbreaking to me with the events happening in the middle of a shopping mall.

With the loss of millions of people all over the world, the world goes into chaos for various reasons. While the First Responders did their best during the end of the world to restore order, it is a shame that the First Responders were not also called during the Rapture. Of course, if they were, the world would have been even more chaotic. Events like this is what CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) was created for - to support First Responders. I know my CERT team would be out there doing what they can to help, but I would feel just as sad for them if they were not called up to the Rapture. The theme for both the movie and for CERT is, are you ready?

It is amazing how Christians help run and stabilize the world in their jobs. Christians in control of vehicles like cars and planes suddenly disappearing in flight can cause a lot of damage. It makes me sad that while children disappeared, their mothers/parents did not. There is a definite loss in the second half of the movie without the children in the world. It seems a shame that a lot of apparently good people were left behind to suffer the end time, despite their love for their families. While most of these good people are still in shock, a few of them, like news journalist Chad Michael Murray pull together to calm people down and get through this event.

I felt that the Christian message was pushed over the top from the beginning and that many of the lead "Christians" in the movie were not likable. Even Cage's wife Lea Thompson was pushing it when she was talking with her daughter Cassi Thomson who is home from college for an unsuspecting Cage's birthday. If I had written the movie, I would have had the lead Christian characters act as normal people interacting with the other characters and slowly revealing their beliefs during their relationships. As to the film itself, Left Behind felt more like a Hollywood disaster film to me - especially with Cage's runaway airliner, and Armstrong who is known mostly as a Stunt Coordinator rather than a Director - rather than an end time movie.

Although the Left Behind authors LaHaye and Jenkins liked the movie - most of the reviewers, including some of the Christian reviewers, that I have read did not like the movie. I think the movie would have taken a different tone if Ashley Tisdale was able to work out her schedule to be able to play Cage's daughter.

It is curious that I saw this movie near the season of the end times at the end of the liturgical year.

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

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Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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THE EQUALIZER

Sony Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 132 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of The Equalizer.



In Sony Pictures The Equalizer, hardware depot manager Denzel Washington takes it upon himself to protect a hooker Chloe Grace Moretz from her pimp David Meunier  - and soon goes up against the Russian Mafia.

Living an ordinary life as a hardware manager, at a hardware depot that is based on Home Depot and Lowes, Washington works closely with his fellow hardware workers, including security guard applicant Johnny Skourtis. Washington soon makes friends with Moretz who is interested in Washington's books. After Moretz is beaten by Meunier, Washington goes after Meunier - who happens to be with the Russian Mafia.

Based on the TV show The Equalizer that starred Edward Woodward, and Directed by Antoine Fuqua, The Equalizer is about a former government operative who offers his services in helping people who have the odds against them. In the movie, Washington meets with his former government colleagues Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo about Marton Csokas, a Russian enforcer who was assigned to find out what happened to Meunier. The adversarial relationship between Csokas and Washington was most interesting to me. It is interesting that Washington's character had no real back story in the movie so Washington created his own back story for his character, with the character having obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

While a popular TV series, I had never watched The Equalizer at the time. I have a feeling that the movie took on more of the style of the TV show in that the movie was more of a suspense thriller - rather than an action film, which some people might think the movie would seem to be. But make no mistake that the violence in the movie is fairly graphic.

At the end of the movie, I was pleasantly surprised to read that The Equalizer was Written by someone I used to work with at Showtime, Richard Wenk. Sony Pictures plan on doing a sequel to The Equalizer with Richard writing the script. I hope they keep Richard, not just because I know him, but so that there will be more of a coherent consistency to the next movie. Fuqua hopes the sequel to be more international.

Rated R for graphic violence and language. Running time: 132 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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ARGO

Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 120 Minutes



Click below to watch the Argo trailer.



In Warner Bros. Pictures Argo, Ben Affleck is a CIA ex filtration expert who has to get six U.S. Embassy escapees out of Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. 

Based on a true story, the movie starts out with movie storyboards describing the historical background of Iran - then the movie goes into the story as the U.S. Embassy gets stormed by Iranian protesters during the Islamic revolution of 1979. Six of the Embassy staff sneak out the back of the Embassy during the takeover - and takes refuge at the Canadian Embassy with Canadian Ambassador Victor Garber. 

As the head of the C.I.A.’s Graphics and Authentication Division, producer, director, and star Affleck - as the real life Tony Mendez - was responsible for foreign agents and the agents cover stories. After watching a clip of Battle for the Planet of the Apes from his hotel during a phone call with his son Aidan Sussman who is sitting at home, Affleck comes up with the idea of getting the refugees out of Iran by having them pose as a Canadian film crew making a science fiction movie that needs exotic Iranian locales - so they can fly out of Iran after the "location scouting" trip. With the help of Hollywood makeup artist John Goodman as John Chambers - who had created Mr. Spock's pointed ears, as well as worked on the Planet of the Apes movie series - and Producer Alan Arkin, they create a production studio for the fake science fiction/fantasy film. Arkin takes this project seriously - if the story has a horse, "it's a western, not a science fiction film." I loved what Alan Arkin said, "If I'm doing a fake movie, it's going to be a fake hit." The audience laughed at all the Hollywood jokes. 

The juxtaposition between the intense real-life Iran and the fantasy land of lowest-common denominator Hollywood was quite ironic. The run-down Hollywood Sign, before it's renovation, stresses the fact that this is the time period of 1979. The costumes in Hollywood were straight out of a science fiction convention and were pretty funny, while the Iranian Anti-American protesters were very scary. I wished there was more of the Hollywood aspect in the second half of the movie with John Goodman and Alan Arkin waiting back in Hollywood, at least arranging more of the Hollywood support system needed for the refugees extraction considering how rushed the project was put together.  The Hollywood aspect would have lightened the tension of the intense second half of the film as the Iranians hunt for the refugees, which was very draining for me. Having the refugees not trusting Affleck and the Iranian military searching for the refugees definitely was intense. When refugee "location scout" Kerry Bishe takes location pictures as part of her fake ID job, she gets into a confrontation with an Iranian business owner for taking a picture of his business. This was just one of the intense scenes in the second half of the movie as Affleck is determined to fly the refugees out, despite a problem with their airline tickets. It was fortunate that one of the refugees can speak Farsi. 

Having the Embassy using strip paper shredders instead of cross-cut paper shredders did not make sense to me - especially when they also had a furnace for burning sensitive documents - and of course the use of strip shredders was used to the detriment of the Embassy hostages and refugees. I am sure, after this incident - and the Oliver North Iran-Contra affair - cross-cut paper shredders are part of government facilities now. 

While I understand the storming of the Embassy, there was no real resolution of the U.S. Marines stationed at the U.S. Embassy. It is implied that the Marines were overrun and taken hostage, but you never really saw that. Given the fact that the Marines had a no-shoot-to-kill order - it is sad, but not surprising that the Embassy and the Marines were overrun. 

It was interesting to see the archival TV news clips of the time about the hostage crises, with the nationally famous network newscasters looking so young - as well as seeing the news clips of President Jimmy Carter and U.S. and Canadian government officials. Iran government officials, as well as Iranian women reading statements denouncing the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. and Canadian governments in the aftermath of the incident is still rather disturbing. Affleck had the film processed in a way so that the movie looked like it came from that time period. The Warner Bros. logo used for the movie was the logo used during that time period. 

While in reality, British and New Zealand diplomats also had put their lives at risk to help the American refugees - but I do not recall any mention of them in the movie, so their involvement in the movie was very light.

The crowd in the theater was definitely and older crowd and the theater was pretty full for an afternoon matinee. This was definitely the type of crowd who were around during the Iran hostage crisis. While I remember the 52 hostages, I barely remember the release of the 6 refugees - so this movie was very suspenseful for me as I did not know the refugees story. I loved all of the Star Wars toys on Sussman's bedroom dresser shelves at the end of the movie as they ran the end credits crawl. During the end credits, there was a "where are they now" crawl of the people involved with the incident and a crawl of the involvement along with the Canadian government - as well as a voice-over statement from former President Carter describing the Argo incident. The credits also showed the movie shots being compared with the real-life pictures of the hostage crisis. At the end of the movie, the audience applauded. 


Rated R for violence and language. Running time: 120 Minutes

 Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.
 

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

The Tourist

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 103 minutes





























Click below to watch The Tourist trailer.



In Columbia Pictures The Tourist, Angelina Jolie is under observation by Interpol in order to track her boyfriend - who stole millions of dollars from a gangster. Ravishing Jolie picks up innocent American tourist Johnny Depp on a train in order to convince Interpol and the gangsters following Jolie that Depp is the criminal they are searching for.

This is not the action-packed suspense movie that the trailers might lead you to believe. In fact, all of the action that you see in the movie is shown in the trailer. The movie is more of a 1940's or 50's film noir movie, the kind of movie of which I have not really seen since I was in film school. There is a certain amount of elegance in this type of movie that I miss when compared to the over-the-top action films. While there are elements of James Bond in The Tourist, especially with former James Bond Timothy Dalton as a chief inspector, The Tourist is more like Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. The movie being like North by Northwest, I am sure, is due to German writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's influence on the film.

In one of his rare more normal roles, Johnny Depp is great as the befuddled American tourist caught up in a world of intrigue by femme fatal Angelina Jolie, while Interpol, Scotland Yard, and the gangsters close in on Depp and Jolie. Jolie and Depp have some steamy scenes together as Jolie draws Depp more and more into her dangerous world. As a result of Depp's and Jolie's intriguing relationship, The Tourist makes for a great date movie.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 103 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.