JOHN WICK

Summit Entertainment

Rated R

Running time: 101 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of John Wick from YouTube.



In Summit Pictures John Wick, widower John Wick/Keanu Reeves has his car - a vintage '69 Mustang - stolen by punk Alfie Allen from his home. After losing everything he cares for, Wick/Reeves - also known as Baba Yaga, or the Bogeyman - goes after Allen and Allen's father Michael Nyqvist, who is the head of the Russian crime syndicate in New York City and for whom Reeves used to work for, in revenge.

The movie is really a personal story between former syndicate associates Nyqvist and Reeves, with Allen almost being a MacGuffin. The respect that Nyqvist had for Reeves as a surrogate son - as opposed to his arrogant spoiled son Allen - was nice to see. The same relationship, but on a different level,  between hit men Willem Dafoe and Reeves was also nice to see - and you never know which way Dafoe was going. It was also nice to see Adrianne Palicki in the movie, who also learned judo and ju-jitsu. After several action roles, Palicki has become the new action heroine of this generation.

Reeves was pretty bad ass in the movie as a retired hitman. He was not psycho, but very reserved and focused. Reeves trained in judo, Japanese ju-jitsu, and Brazillian jiu-jitsu as well as training with members of the LA SWAT and the Navy SEALs that Director Chad Stahelski and Co-Director/Producer David Leitch had known and did 90% of his stunts for this role. And Wick's/Reeves double tap shooting of his opponents was quite believable as a result. Because of all this, I liked this movie better than The Equalizer. I really liked Wick's/Reeves beagle puppy Daisy and I thought that his dog humanized him a lot. Wick's/Reeves wife Bridget Moynahan did not know anything about Wick's/Reeves past, but she is not onscreen long enough to really know and care about her. I did like the hotel, owned by Ian McShane, in the middle of the movie that was used as a neutral ground centerpiece for this underworld.

The subtitles for the Russian language were most interesting in that they were not shown at the bottom of the screen as with typical subtitles, but in the style of a graphic novel.

The last few shots of the movie I felt were too rushed story wise as I felt it was too cute. I would have preferred a couple more shots to bring out the emotion of the movie tag.

On a technical note, when I saw this movie there was a problem with the video projection when the movie started so all we heard was the audio. It was a 9:00 a.m. showing and there were only a half dozen of us in the theater. There was a girl in the audience with us, and she laughed saying that all but one of the guys, including me, went out to complain. I thought what she said was funny. John Wick is definitely a guy's movie.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of John Wick from YouTube.



Rated R for violence, language, sexual situations. Running time: 101 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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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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