How To Train Your Dragon

This movie was great! It was funny, cute, great for kids, and the animation was awesome. I saw this with my family in 3D, and I will say that seeing the movie was worth the 60 bucks we had to pay for us all to go see it (this is another subject in which I'm not too happy about with this whole new surge in 3D movies, perhaps another post). I would in fact see it again, it was that good.

The movie is basically about this tribe of Vikings whose village is constantly being attacked by dragons. The village has gotten so use to this occurring that their children are taught to fight these dragons and most of the adults continue to venture out to find and destroy the dragons' nest. In comes our main character, Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) the son of the brave, tough village leader, Stoick (voiced by Gerard Butler), who is the complete opposite of his father. He is rather weak, clumsy, and try as he might is never able to fight or capture a dragon and instead gets in the way. His one redeeming quality: he is incredibly smart.

Hiccup creates a contraption to trap a dragon, and as luck would have it, actually catches himself a bonafide dragon, not only that but one that has never been seen by anyone in the village because it is so illusive. As I'm sure you can guess, he and the dragon make friends and through the encounters with his dragon, Hiccup is able to defeat the other dragons in his fighting training. His secret friend is uncovered and his father uses him to find the nest, only to discover a more sinister problem than their run of the mill sheep-stealing dragons. Action-sequence ensues.

Oh, there's a little love story in there two, but who cares about that, right? Stoick's brother and the young viking trainer is voiced by Craig Ferguson, whose lines are hilarious! There are a few other big names as voices (America Ferrara as Astrid, the love interest, Kristin Wiig, and Jonah Hill to name a few), but they do such a good job that you can get past their famous voices and just see the characters.

This movie is great for kids and adults alike. I mean my whole family loved it, and my youngest sibling is 12 and my dad is 50. It's a good family movie. With a few more great films like this and Kung Fu Panda, DreamWorks might finally give Pixar/Disney a run for their money.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Ummm. I LOVED this movie. I have been wanting to see it for a long while, and I have heard rave reviews about it. I finally bought it on demand and watched it with my two younger siblings, and they loved it too. It's just a fun movie with some great voice acting and very funny jokes. And some pretty dang fantastic animation!

It is claymation, and let me tell you, it looks awesome. The fur moves and just has a nice texture, and the details are amazing. I thought it was great every time Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) smiled because he barred his teeth and it made me laugh. I'm a huge fan of claymation movies because to me it's almost as good as 3D.

The basic story is that Mr. Fox, being what he is, loves stealing chickens etc. However, his wife (voiced by Meryl Streep) tells him he needs to stop stealing because she's pregnant. We then fast forward 12 years and Mr. Fox finds himself bored with his newspaper gig and is itching to steal again to liven up his boring life. He decides to have one last heist that puts him up against three of the meanest farmers known to animal. Of course, the farmers figure it out and decide that this means war. Chaos ensues and all of the animals in the area must face these three farmers to survive.

There is a small subplot involving Mr. Fox's son Ash (voiced by Jason Schwartzman) and his cousin, Kristofferson (voiced by Eric Chase Anderson, brother of the director Wes Anderson), along with a bit of conflict between Ash and Mr. Fox. I don't want to ruin anything so I won't go further because I actually think this subplot was very cute, and I'm glad it broke up the main conflict against the farmers.

I think adults and kids alike will like this movie because there are humorous situations for both, and the adults will probably better appreciate the quirkiness that is a Wes Anderson film. I'm glad Wes ventured out and did something different because I think he really made this story great and come alive. I highly recommend this movie to everyone!