Movie Review: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2
Writer/Director: Dean DeBlois
Starring: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Djimon Hounsou, Kit Harington

Dreamworks Animation has made some fantastic animated franchises like Madagascar, Shrek, and Kung Fu Panda. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel to Chicken Run. They have another successful one under their belt with How to Train Your Dragon 2. In the Viking land Berk, the Vikings and dragons are friendly and peaceful. For many of the characters, their dragons are their best friends. Our favorite Viking Hiccup (Baruchel) has grown up a bit since the first film. He is eager to explore new and uncharted territories with his dragon pal, Toothless. He is joined by his friend Astrid (Ferrera) on his adventures, and they uncover an area covered in ice. They are captured by Eret (Harington) who tries to steal their dragons for the evil conqueror Drago (Hounsou). Before Hiccup and Astrid are too deep into danger, they are rescued by Hiccup’s dad Stoick (Butler) and are warned of Drago’s twenty war history of capturing dragons for his personal army. Hiccup will always try to play the peacemaker and in turn heads out to confront Drago. Along his way, he meets the mysterious Valka (Blanchett), a dragon rider who has spent the last twenty years trying to rescue dragons from Drago. She also has a familial connection to Hiccup.

One of the first things you will notice with this series is the stunning animation. There are so many creative and distinct choices made with the design of the dragons and the Viking world. It is a visual feast that often kept me focused on its execution. Numerous times I caught myself watching the animation over listening to the dialogue. If you have seen the first film, you will realize the animators have wisely aged some of the characters like Hiccup and Astrid to show the passing of time. I’m glad they chose to keep Toothless as a non-talking creature. They bring so much personality into his character that you don’t need a voice added to it. There is a dragon race that opens and ends the film that definitely feels like you are on an action ride at some theme park. I normally shy away from 3D films, but I think it is worth it for animated films. The 3D enriches the already striking animated visuals in a way that typically ruins many live action films.

Many of the actors from the first film lend their voices again for the sequel including: Jay Baruchel (This is the End), America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids), and Jonah Hill (22 Jump Street). Heavy hitters Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Kit Harington (Game of Thrones), and Djimon Hounsou (Amistad) join the cast. This is Blanchett’s second animated film after doing a voice in the English version of Miyazaki’s Ponyo. I found that the voice over work is subtle compared to your standard kids movie. Usually you have someone being this loud mouthed obnoxious sidekick playing for laughs like Eddie Murphy in Shrek. I never once felt like these characters were written for shtick and comedy purposes. While I recognized the voices of Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, or Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Neighbors), they never overpowered their scenes or distracted from the story.

Even if you haven’t seen the first film, you will still be able to understand and have fun with this one. If you do have the opportunity, go and Redbox or Netflix the first one just to have a better understanding of the background of these characters and how the land of Berk has changed between both movies. Again, it’s not imperative as this story does stand on its own but certain specific details will make more sense. Parents will appreciate the themes of family loyalty, acceptance of others, and the responsibilities that come with having a pet. This is a perfect movie for kids that may still be a bit young for the Harry Potter series. The dragon race game that opens the fim is very similar to Quidditch. If you’ve enjoyed both films, you will be happy to know that writer/director Dean DeBlois has announced that How to Train Your Dragon 3 is in the works. He stated that he sees the story as a trilogy and that the third part is not some quick and easy way to make more money.

Is it worth your trip to the movies? There’s a lot of charm and heart with this sequel that is equally enjoyable for any member of the family.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 TICKET STUBS

Movie Review: THE LEGO MOVIE

THE LEGO MOVIE
Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Starring: Chris Pratt, Liam Neeson, Will Arnett, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Will Ferrell, Alison Brie, Will Forte, Jonah Hill, Dave Franco

Yes, it is true. The Lego Movie is AWESOME. Eyes may have rolled when it was first announced that there would be a movie based on Legos. The trailers looked pretty funny, so I had hope that it would actually exceed the low expectations that were originally set in place. Boy, did it ever. Emmet (Pratt) wakes up every day as excited as he can be. Everything is awesome in life. He is just your ordinary Lego figurine that goes about his everyday life according to the set of instructions he has been given. He is a bit naïve and innocent and does not quite understand the fact that the other construction workers don’t really like him.

At the construction site one day after work, he is taken aback by the fierce and creative Wyldstyle (Banks) who he finds digging around on the grounds searching for “The Piece of Resistance”. It is not long before he falls down a deep mysterious hole and is captured by Bad Cop (Neeson). Bad Cop is working for the evil Lord Business (Ferrell) who is planning on taking over the entire Lego universe by using the “Kragle” to freeze everything in place the way he wants it to be. Wyldstyle rescues Emmet and informs him that he must be the one known simply as the “Special”. Many ages ago, the wizard Vitruvius (Freeman) told of a prophecy where the Special would use The Piece of Resistance to put a stop toward Lord Business and save the Lego world.

Off the bat, this is not the most unique premise in the entire universe. We have seen these types of underdog stories before where the main character is this ordinary, average person who in turn is told they will save the universe even though they do not possess any sort of special power or creative nature about them. I am a sucker for that whole concept of believing in yourself when no one else has any faith in you. What makes The Lego Movie so special is the journey and wildly imaginative universe the creative team came up with to make this animated film step out as one of best in the genre from recent years. Like Toy Story and Wreck-It Ralph before it, it takes something from our childhood that we have a connection with and elevates it to a whole other dimension. I do not remember playing with Legos a whole lot as a child as I was more into my Power Rangers/Batman/He-Man action figures. Even though I don’t have a past connection or memories of Lego worlds I created, it didn’t stop me from connecting to this story and laughing throughout. There are plenty of laughs for the adults taking their children to the movie, or if you are like me, who went solo to this without a child attached at the hip.

The animation is top-notch and astonishing as you realize that  the team of animators took extra care into making sure that every aspect of the design is Lego based including the water, fire, car exhaust, and waves for examples. All of the characters move in accordance to how an actually Lego piece is able to move. Lego pieces have to walk and turn their heads a certain way, and parts of them can detach. The effort to keep them true to that is noticeable and noteworthy. They never take them out of the confines of their natural construction.

When you listen to the voice-over actors do their work of bringing these characters to life, you can tell they are all having a blast. One of the highlights is Will Arnett as Batman. He is clearly doing his best Christian Bale impression. It's practically like having the cast of The Dark Knight Trilogy here with Neeson and Freeman also lending their voices to characters very similar to the images we know them as from other roles.  Freeman has played God and the president numerous times, so it's no surprise he would play the all mighty wizard here. There are plenty of  other surprise cameo voices that come out once Emmet, Wyldstyle, and Batman call in the troops for additional help against Lord Business.

I think some people may have questioned why I went to The Lego Movie. It may have seemed odd that I was alone with my pretzel bites at the theater surrounded by a bunch of other parents and their kids. I feel like if this was a Pixar film, adults would be more apt to flock to it. You expect this type of creativity and imagination from their canon. Frankly, this is better than the last two offerings from Pixar. I think word of mouth will spread about how enjoyable the film is for all ages. The ending came as a surprise, and completely elevates it to the next level. If you have seen it, you know what I'm talking about. This will surely become a new franchise, so get out while you can to catch this Lego tale. Don't be surprised if you get the main song, "Everything is Awesome", gets stuck in your head.

Is it worth your trip to the movies? YES! No matter what age you are, you will enjoy it!

RATING: **** (4 out of 5 stars)

Movie Review: FROZEN

FROZEN
Directors: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Starring: Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff, Santino Fontana, Ciarán Hinds, Alan Tudyk

As little girls, Princesses Anna and Elsa are as close as two sisters can be. Elsa has been graced with a special power to turn things to ice and snow with a simple touch. They love playing around their castle in Arendelle when Elsa creates a snowy play area for them to have with inside the castle. One day the playing gets out of hand when Anna accidentally gets hit with a blast of ice by Elsa. In order to protect both of them, their parents have Anna's memory erased of the incident. This also leads to Elsa being banished to a separate room of the castle so no one in the village has any knowledge of her power.

Years pass and the girls grow up being separated from each other. Elsa (Menzel) has grown to resent her power and is unable to fully control when it happens. She is the heir to the thrown and on her coronation day Elsa and Anna decide to open the doors of the castle to all of the villagers of Arendelle. After the ceremony, another incident occurs and Elsa's powers are exposed to the villagers. She feels so embarrassed and out of control that she runs away. As her frustration grows, the icy cold spreads over the village turning it into a snowy frozen land year round. She retreats to a mountain and tries to come to terms with her power. Anna (Bell) chases after Elsa and runs into the rugged Kristoff (Groff), his reindeer Sven, and an energetic snowman named Olaf (Gad) who help her along the way.

With so many animated movies released each year, it should come as no surprise that the annual Disney offering stands out as one of the best. Inspired by "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Anderson, Frozen hearkens back to the old classic princess stories set to singable score. The story uses that traditional model but puts a different twist on it as this is not about some helpless princess pining after her unattainable prince. Yes, there are two dapper men along the way, but this tale is all about the love and bond of sisterhood. Kristen Bell's Anna is scrappy, tough, and has the never-give-up attitude in her quest to find and save her sister. Idina Menzel has a huge belter voice who completely nails the powerful main theme song "Let It Go". It would have been easy to make Elsa the Snow Queen the evil villain, but I applaud the writing team for not going that route. What would a Disney movie be without the comedic fool. Josh Gad makes Olaf fun and hilarious without ever crossing the obnoxious line which can be tricky with these types of Disney characters.

The songs by husband/wife duo Robert Lopez (Broadway's "The Book of Mormon", "Avenue Q") and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Wreck-It Ralph) have written a Broadway-inspired score with "Let It Go" most likely to get stuck in your head. Long gone are the days where you would have two different actors doing the regular voice and singing voice of the character. All of the actors perform their own singing in Frozen. It also boasts four Broadway actors in the main cast including Menzel, Gad, Groff, and Fontana. The orchestral score by Christophe Beck should also be noted for using Norwegian music and instruments as inspiration. I could not help but envision this being turned into next big Disney Broadway musical some day.

The Walt Disney Animations Studios has hit it a resurgence lately with Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph. You can confidently add Frozen to that list. There were numerous trailers for upcoming children's movies and I think only one, maybe two of them, seemed to stand out and would be appealing for both young movie goers and their parents. The animation of the ice and snow is stunning and beautiful. The story has that traditional Disney feel but takes a different twist on the concepts. The characters are spunky, have determination, and represent good role models for the young girls who go see the movie. I remember for awhile in the '90s, some concerned parents took issue with Disney movies turning a bit too violent or scary with their villains. Rest assured here as Frozen is appropriate for all ages and can be enjoyed by moviegoers of all ages. It has a real wholesome and timeless quality about it that is missing from many of the animated family movies released each year.

RATING: **** (4 out of 5 stars)

Movie Review: WRECK-IT RALPH

WRECK-IT RALPH
Director: Rich Moore
Starring the Voices of: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jane Lynch, Jack McBrayer




"Fix-It Felix, Jr." is a popular arcade game celebrating its 30th anniversary. The classic villain of the game is Wreck-It Ralph (Reilly) who must destroy a building before its hero and main character Fix-It Felix (McBrayer) has a chance to fix the wreckage. When the doors of the arcade close at the end of the day, these characters and worlds come alive. They can go in and out of their games through the Game Central Station as long as they are back to their game when the arcade doors open. A child could easily tell if one of the characters has gone missing from the game.



After thirty years, Ralph is feeling depressed as he is always the villain. He attends Bad-Anon meetings with other villains to work out his feelings. He comes back to the game to find all of the characters are having an anniversary party, but he was not invited. He goes up to the party and Felix sympathizes with him and lets him in. Ralph gets angry when he sees a Ralph figurine is left at the bottom of the cake while everyone else is on the top of the cake. He notices the Felix figurine has a medal and does not understand why he cannot have a medal. Mayhem and a big mess ensue when Ralph throws a tantrum.





Ralph learns that he can win a medal by winning the shooting game, "Hero’s Duty". He encounters Sargent Calhoun (Lynch), the heavy-duty, tough-as-nails leader of the game. Ralph quickly gets his medal but a bot stuck to his escape pod forces him out of the game and subsequently sends him crashing into the racing game, "Sugar Rush Speedway". In this saccharine new world Ralph meets Vanellope von Schweetz(Silverman) hanging off a candy tree. She is a spunky little girl that has felt neglected by the other characters of Sugar Rush as they feel she is not as cool as them as she is only a glitch. All she wants to do is drive a race car like all of the other girls. She snatches the medal from Ralph and uses it to enter the race. Ralph’s desperate attempt to get his medal back opens his eyes to realize that the world of "Sugar Rush Speedway" may not be the cheery and exciting game it is from the outside. He and Vanellope may have more in common than he thought.



The Disney animation studios have really hit it out of the ballpark again with one of their best animated movies in the last decade. The attention and thought put into all of the intricate detail is astonishing. It seems apparent that each world of each video game was thoroughly conceptualized and designed as to not leave any loopholes for any avid gamer to notice. The transitions between the "real" world and the world inside of the game are flawless and cleverly morphed together. The design is so rich in each of the games that it would take multiple viewings to notice all of the subtle choices and references to past video game characters or the kinds of sweet treats that make up "Sugar Rush Speedway". The animators took great care and detail to appropriately design some of the characters movements to match the style of that game or time period. Some characters seem a bit more pixelated and move around a bit more robotic if they are from older games.



The script is witty with constant laughs appropriate for younger and older audiences without ever feeling dumbed down and cheap. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the characters were given background stories and dimensions, especially for supporting characters like Vanellope and Calhoun. All too often supporting characters tend to be the dopey or sassy sidekick who annoys the main character. The voice work done by Reilly and Silverman, in particular, stays grounded and relatable and never borders obnoxious kid-movie tendencies. If you ever played in an arcade when you were younger, you are bound to be flooded with memories as characters show up throughout the movie. The Bad-Anon scene is a stitch! If you are not a gamer, do not feel like you are being left out of the game. It is still plenty enjoyable for us non-gaming folks. I do not consider myself a gamer in my adult life, but I was fascinated and enraptured by the visuals created to bring these games to life. If you are a gamer, you will love it even more as it honors the arcade world.

RATING: **** 1/2 (4.5 out of 5 stars)

Movie Review: FRANKENWEENIE

FRANKENWEENIE
Director: Tim Burton
Featuring Voice Work of: Martin Short, Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Charlie Tahan, Atticus Shafer

Dogs are widely known as man's best friend. This couldn't be truer for Victor Frankenstien (Tahan). Victor is a smart, but unpopular kid who has no friends. He spends his past time playing with his dog, Sparky, and working in his homemade lab in his parents attic. His favorite subject is school is science taught by the mysterious Mr. Rzykruski (Landau). Edgar E. Gore (Shafer) is another outcast kid in Victor's class who would love to work on the science project with him, but Victor would rather work alone. A weird girl (O'Hara) gives Victor a warning that something major is going to happen to him. She explains the psychic premonitions that her cat gives her that happen to come true. Victor's dad (Short) takes him to play baseball with some of the other local boys. He is not exactly the athletic type so when he hits a home run on the third swing, he realizes this must be the sign the weird girl was talking about. Sparky gets super excited and chases after Victor's ball. On his way back from catching the ball, Sparky is run over by an oncoming car and killed instantly. Victor is devastated about losing his one and only friend.

A light bulb goes off for Victor one day in class. Mr. Rzykruski uses electricity to stimulate the muscles on a dead frog. An inspired Victor believes this may work to bring Sparky back. He gets his lab going in full force during a thunderstorm and hooks Sparky up to many bolts, wires, and kites to use the lightening as his spark. Sure enough, it works and Sparky "is aliiiivve". Victor is shocked and excited to have his best friend back. He knows he must keep it a secret. He keeps Sparky in the attic during the work day so his dad, mom (O'Hara), and others don't find out.

The energetic Sparky can't sit still being cooped up all day in the attic. He goes exploring in the neighborhood getting into mischief with the neighbor's (Ryder) dog as well as the weird girl's cat. Edgar sees Sparky and insists that Victor shows him how he did it. He buys a dead goldfish in an attempt to try it out himself. During the next thunderstorm, the boys attempt their experiment on the goldfish only to come up with slightly different results. Edgar can't keep Victor's secret for very long and accidentally lets it slip to some of the rival kids in class. They all attempt Victor's experiment on their deceased pets only to have disastrous outcomes resulting in mad chaos and destruction on their peaceful New Holland neighborhood.

The title of the movie may sound familiar to you. Burton first told this story back in 1984 as a live action short film starring Shelley Duvall and Daniel Stern. This time around he goes for a black and white stop-motion animation style. This is the same style that was used in The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride. I love the use of black and white. Not many children's movies are released in black and white anymore. It fully enhances the gothic look Tim Burton has been known to embrace. He has many homages to some of his previous work like Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns as well as creature features like Frankenstein and Godzilla. The town of New Holland is identical to the neighborhood in Edward Scissorhands even down to the bushes and luminous hill that the town flocks to at the ending. Burton loves to use many of the same actors in each of his projects. Martin Short, Martin Landau, Catherine O'Hara, and Winona Ryder are all veterans to Burton's imaginative worlds. Danny Elfman is back with a score that reminds us of the beautiful score he wrote for Edward Scissorhands. Frankenweenie is a return to the look and feel of the classic Tim Burton movies that I grew up on. I have been really disappointed in many of his latest movies, but this one really resonated with me. Be warned that while this is an animated kids movie, it is still enjoyable for adults but may be too scary for wee little children.

Opens October 5, 2012

RATING: **** (4 out of 5 stars)