Film Review: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

One of the problems with Dreamworks animated movies is how inconsistent they've been on quality, which is why I missed the first How To Train Your Dragon (HTTYD) movie at the cinema and then kicked myself when I saw it on DVD. It's a really good family animated movie, and while it's about fights with dragons and things, it's also a movie about family.

The sequel was good too. So, I was looking forward to the 3rd film HTTYD: The Hidden World. And in general, it's pretty good. Not as good as the first two, but it does the job and also makes a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

Review: Inside Out

It's rare that I see a film and come out thinking that I haven't just seen a movie, but a film that might just be a classic. I see a lot of very entertaining films, I see films that later turn out to be classics, but I rarely see films that not just blow me away at how good they are, but which I'm sure aren't just a passing fad.

If you don't know the plot, it's about all the stuff going on inside a young girl's head. This has been done many times in cinema. For example: the scene with the little men inside the brain of a man trying to have sex in Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask.

The big difference here is that (and my knowledge of psychology and neuroscience isn't too detailed) the stuff going on in the film seems grounded in a lot of good science. This means it's not trite, but makes the story outside and inside the head feel right.

Film of the year so far, thoroughly recommended.

Film Review: Les Miserables

This wasn't my choice, but one of the family. I'd heard a few songs, wasn't too sure, but thought I'd try it anyway.

For me, I thought it was a mess of a film. There are a couple of good songs in there (Do You Hear the People Sing? is the best) but most of the songs are instantly forgettable, and there are a lot of them. I couldn't watch Master of the House being sung without being reminded of lapel-grabbing urchins dancing to You've Got to Pick and Pocket or Two from Oliver. The musical seems to lack a good musical structure of building up to a climax, I'm guessing because it was originally a stage musical where you have intervals and a big number before the interval. It means that while watching it, I thought we were near the end of the film, only for another hour or so to happen afterwards. I also find Tom Hooper's direction irritating, all odd camera angles and swooping close ups that end up irritating.

On the plus side, the live singing, something rarely done before in musicals, is quite good here. Traditionally musicals had performers lip-synching to the songs and then being sung over separately, either by the performer or a better singer. That said, Russell Crowe should have had this treatment. He's believably cast as an unsympathetic jailer, but doesn't have a good singing voice.

Hugh Jackman is very good as Valjean and Anne Hathaway's performance as Fantine deserves the plaudits it received. But what I came away from the film with most is that Victor Hugo wrote a damn good story and if someone had applied the same budget to a non-singing movie adaptation of the book, it would make a terrific film.

Movie Review - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The generally good reviews of the last Hobbit movie have prompted me to catch up on all the Hobbit films, the last one at the cinema. Here, I cover The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but I'll be doing the other films too.

I'm not sure that I'd have been very happy if I'd paid full price and seen The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. One of the criticisms of the Lord of the Rings is that it was 3 films of hobbits walking, a somewhat unfair criticism, but a lot of The Hobbit did feel like that (although mostly dwarves in this case). It also felt like not much had happened in the film (there are things that happen, but they don't go anywhere at this point).

Yet, I want to see some more of it. I want to see where it goes. And I realised that my experience with The Hobbit was a bit like my experience with Game of Thrones. You watch a few episodes, you get to see the world they live in, the characters that inhabit it and a bit of story, and you're interested where it goes from here. Viewed as a 9 hour TV series, The Hobbit is so far interesting, I'd like to watch some more of it, and compared to say, a box set of Game of Thrones, actually a bit cheaper (I find the cost of TV boxsets compared to renting or buying movies weird.).

Edge of Tomorrow (DVD/streaming) Review

Something that hasn't really been explained in the past few years is the demise of "star value". There was once an era that Tom Cruise's name over a film would automatically get an initial audience in who would either rave about it (Rain Man) or tell people to avoid it (Eyes Wide Shut). Star names have been replaced more with franchises, or even studios. The Pixar and Marvel names will bring in crowds in a way that Tom Cruise or Will Smith don't.

I'm mostly ambivalent about this, but I generally rather like the films that Tom Cruise is in. Of all the movie stars out there, I think he's generally selective more on quality than pay cheques, which means you've got a good chance of getting good value going to see a film with his name on.

It's the only reason I can think of that the Edge of Tomorrow was a bit of a flop at the cinema, although the movie seems to be rebranded as Live. Die. Repeat, so maybe the name was a problem. It's brilliant, and a rare thing, an action sci-fi movie that thrills in the action, and has some sci-fi that's logically consistent and doesn't fall apart before the end. It's also funny at times, with some dark humour in it. Well worth 3 or 4 quid.

Movie Roundup - from the ridiculous to the sublime

First up was Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, a movie where a bunch of galactic losers ends up coming together and becoming the good guys. It's hugely entertaining stuff, a great example of how to make popcorn cinema. Funnier and sillier than most Marvel movies, but the moments of serious are only more engaging as a result. Thoroughly recommended.

Then, I caught Under the Skin on streaming. I'd really enjoyed Jonathan Glazer's earlier film Sexy Beast. (he's also the director of the famous Guinness commercial with the surfers) and it had good reviews, too. It's really interesting looking and is brilliantly shot, but I've got to admit that I was quite baffled by it and perhaps a bit lost, especially with the character of "motorcycle man" and had to find a few YouTube videos to explain it all, which kinda fit. I don't normally need things in a film spelt out, but I think the director had given so little information that many of the things you see are open to multiple interpretations. If you have a different interpretation, it doesn't fit. Which might be why critics are raving about it (they can see the meanings in the film) but audiences are not so favourable.

Film Review: How to Train Your Dragon 2

I missed the first How to Train Your Dragon at the cinema. Dreamworks' so-so record on films meant I missed it and waited for DVD. I kicked myself later when I saw it as it's one of the best animated movies of the past 5 years, and better than the last few Pixar movies.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a really good sequel to the first film. I don't think it's as good as the first one. It's visually more impressive with even more dragons, even more detail, but I think the story isn't quite as strong. And novelty always counts for something. But if you want a good film to keep the kids happy, or just like that sort of films, I thoroughly recommend it.

(note: we saw it in 2D, but I think it might be worth the extra money for 3D for all the flying bits).

Movie Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past: 3D

I've recently been neglecting my duties in the movie review area, but as it's the weekend and some people might consider it, it's worth posting a review.

Anyway, the story is that sometime in the future, around 2020-something, the mutants and the good bits of humanity are being destroyed by some sentinels that can defeat mutants. So, the way to fix this is a bit of time travel back to the 1970s to stop an event happening and fix the future.

And it's pretty good. The writing is solid. Like the best of the X-Men movies it doesn't shy away from exploring the consequences of such a situation (how would non-mutants react to mutants and vice versa). The same stellar cast from X-Men First Class are back as Professor X, Magneto and Mystique (James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence). It manages a few 1970s-era jokes without overloading on them.

I'm not sure I'd spend the extra on 3D, though. I don't mind 3D (Gravity and Avatar are better with it) but there's only one scene where I felt like it might have lost some effect (and it's a piece of joyful silliness that I'm not going to give away).

Movie Review: Frozen

For many years, Disney animation was in a bit of a bleak place, producing lots of not-too-great movies, while hiring Pixar to make terrific movies that appealed to both kids and adults. Then Disney bought Pixar from Steve Jobs and Disney put John Lasseter, the chief creative in charge of creative decisions at Disney. And since, then, we've seen a revitalisation of Disney's animation with films like Princess and the Frog and Wreck-It Ralph and now Frozen.

Despite Lasseter taking over at Disney, Frozen is much more of what I consider a Disney movie than a Pixar movie. It's a fairy tale with princesses and castles and magic and songs. It follows the line of films like Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and Enchanted.

So, this review probably isn't so much for you as for your daughters or nieces, who will absolutely love this movie. It's beautifully made, has a good story, good characters, and has an infectious set of songs that you can't get our of your head.

It's currently out on DVD and Blu-Ray and I suggest that if you're buying it for your kids because they won't watch it once.

Movie Review: Horrible Bosses

Watched Horrible Bosses last night and thought it a rather good black comedy. It's about 3 guys working for horrible bosses, each horrible in their own ways. Kevin Spacey is a bastard, Jennifer Aniston is a man-eating sex-pest cougar and Colin Farrell is a scumbag. And they get desperate enough that they decide to bump them off.

The real pleasure of the film is how much fun Spacey, Aniston and Farrell have with their roles. Spacey is terrific as always, Aniston shows that her biggest problem was the scripts she picked rather than talent, and Farrell is at first almost unrecognisable. The writing is smart, the dialogue is snappy and if you have a Lovefilm/Amazon sub it's free to watch.