How to train your Dragon was a delightful animated movie that I saw with my sister. I was not anticipating just how much I would enjoy watching this movie.
Our hero is a young boy who is in his teens and is basically an outcast among his people…the Vikings.
His name is Hiccup which should tell you something right there.
His father is the bold Viking leader voiced by Gerard Butler of 300 fame. If you’ll remember Gerard Butler was King Leonidas in the movie 300 the gutsy Spartan King.
Anyway Hiccup is this hapless boy who his father is a bit ashamed of. He never voices that to Hiccup in person but you can tell that the shame grows beneath the surface.
The Viking village is often accosted and assaulted by all manner of dragons. We don’t exactly know why the Dragon’s keep taking all their sheep and their food but we simply assume it is for them to eat. We later discover a far darker purpose for why they raid this Viking village so vigorously.
At the beginning of our movie our hero Hiccup desperately wants to fit in with his people and be a Dragon fighter. This is the highest order and what all the male teens in his tribe aspired to be and do.
But his father does not believe he can be a Dragon fighter. He works with the blacksmith at the blacksmith shop to make the weapons and out of danger. He is scorned and mocked by his peers who are also in their teens.
But in the beginning one of his inventions happens to luckily hit one of the night fury dragons as they are called. These are the fastest and most elusive dragons that none of his Viking people have ever seen.
He goes off into the woods hunting for this night fury because he knows he has hit it. He comes upon the Dragon which is entangled in the net that he shot out of his invention. And the Dragon cannot move.
Hiccup raises his knife ready to plunge it deep into the night fury’s heart when he looks into the Dragon’s sad eyes. In that moment he sees a little bit of himself and cannot plunge the dagger in deep.
The story develops as he becomes closer to his Dragon and basically develops it as a pet. He injured the tale of the Dragon so it can no longer fly.
But since our hero Hiccup is something of a blacksmith and an inventor he is able to make a tail flap and attaches it to the Dragon. But he must ride the Dragon in order to work the flap, kind of like the reins on a horse.
Of course, there’s a pretty girl that Hiccup has always had a crush on who is something of a bad ass. She is one of the true Dragon fighters.
But during their training Hiccup continually upstages her because he has inside knowledge of dealing with his pet night fury dragon. He understands their likes and dislikes.
Toward the end of the story Hiccup discovers a fundamental truth about the dragons in that they are not out to hurt the Vikings nor are they there enemies. They are simply doing the bidding of someone far more sinister and evil than them. They are nothing more than pawns or worker bees in a hive of bees controlled by the queen bee.
He totally transforms how the Vikings and the Dragons inter-act.
There is of course the climactic scene between the huge queen dragon and all the other characters in the movie that you simply cannot miss.
Bottom line is even though I didn’t think I would like this movie I give it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.
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Baby on Board is a movie that I had never heard of before but was perusing the satellite last night and happened to come upon it. It apparently came out in 2008 and stars Jerry O’Connell of “Sliders” fame as well as Heather Graham the hottie from numerous movies.
They are up-and-coming young professionals who have an outstanding marriage. Jerry is friends with the guy from “Sex and the City” and he is also an extremely successful lawyer but his marriage is on the rocks.
He is cheating on his wife and they are on the way to divorce. They treat each other absolutely terribly and when they do speak it is very acrimonious. This leads me to believe this movie is going to be about self-discovery and the perils of marriage.
Our hero Jerry is something of a sleazy lawyer with no morals who deals in divorce law.
He’s representing a woman who is in her 40s and looks pretty good who has married a 97-year-old man. She only married him because he said he was going to be dying soon and she was going to be getting all of his money.
These are the kind of cases our antihero takes.
His wife happens upon him making out with the client and then fails to see that she was the one who lunged at him and he is pushing her away. This of course starts the conflict.
It’s not exactly “The War of the Roses” with Danny DeVito, Michael Douglas, and Kathleen Turner. It doesn’t escalate to that violent and absolutely insidious place that Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner took it to in that movie.
They mainly go with the silent treatment and disdain for one another’s presence.
They both go out on dates in a vainglorious attempt to make each other jealous. It does end up working but in the process they also find out how much they love each other.
Jerry’s friend throughout the movie tries his hardest to be with other women and to get past his marriage. But he simply cannot because even when he looks at other women he sees his wife Sylvie’s face.
At the end he gives a very stirring speech that gives Jerry’s character the courage to go back to his wife and be the father that he was always supposed to be.
Both the main characters discover that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
It’s a typical hokey Hollywood ending.
The movie did have some funny points and laughs so give it 2 out of 5 stars.
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“Date Night” was a movie that I have not heard much about. I guess it had gotten lost in all of the big-time releases in April of 2010 with Clash of the Titans and Hot Tub Time Machine already being released this month.
But I first saw a commercial with the main characters being Steve Correll and Tina Fey and I knew this had possibility to be an extremely funny movie. I also saw Mark Wahlberg and that hottie from the most recent Fast and Furious movie that came out in 2009 was also in it so I knew it was golden.
With this cast of characters I knew it was something I had to see. And when I saw it I was not disappointed.
Steve and Tina play this married couple who have been married for over 10 years and have like three kids. They live a boring New Jersey life.
In an attempt to spice things up they have a Date Night every week but it ends up being the exact same dinner at this crab leg place.
So Steve decides he wants to spice things up and get out of the rut that they find themselves in. And of course this is the early part of the story where you expect that some conflict is going to enter in to spice things up. And Date Night Movie does not disappoint in this regard.
Steve says he’s going to take his wife to this new restaurant called “Claw” which is a high-class seafood restaurant that is exceedingly difficult to get into. But he assures Tina that they’re going to get there early enough on Friday night that there will be an open table.
Of course, when they get there the folly of this idea becomes apparent. First off they got stuck in traffic and it takes way longer to get there than Steve had anticipated. Next the gay hostess looks at them like they are crazy to come in at 7:30 PM on a Friday night expecting to get an open table without a reservation.
So they go wait at the bar in a futile attempt to get a table. And that’s when it happens.
A sexy girl who works there is walking by shouting “Tripplehorn”. She keeps saying it “Tripplehorn”. So Steve sees his opportunity to seize this reservation that isn’t theirs because clearly the Tripplehorn’s aren’t claiming it.
They sit down and gasp at the crazy high prices. And then these two really evil looking dudes stroll up to their table and tell them that they have to go outside. Of course, they are thinking only that they are in trouble for taking someone else’s reservation.
But they would soon find themselves in way deeper than they ever anticipated because these guys are demanding a flash drive that was stolen from their mean mobster type boss. Steve and Tina tell them they know nothing about it and that they simply stole this reservation but the two evil deeds are unconvinced.
The story goes off on a huge tangent as they finally realize they must hunt down the Tripplehorns and get the flash drive otherwise the evil mob boss is never going to let them alone. And they are extremely worried about their children.
A crazy adventure then begins and a lot of self-discovery happens. They reaffirm how much they love each other and that they would do their marriage all over again.
And Tina for the first time sees her husband as he really is. He was a leader who put this whole plan together and ended up taking down the district attorney and the head mob boss because of his shrewd strategy.
This was quite funny and I give it 4 stars out of 5. Here’s a little spoiler: there’s a crazy pole dance between Steve and Tina that’ll knock you off your chair and have you rolling on the floor laughing.
Leave your comments about what you thought of the movie.
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Hot Tub Time Machine was as funny as I thought it would be. I’ve always been a fan of time travel movies like TimeCop and the Back to the Future trilogy.
Of course, sometimes time travel movies are much more well done than others.
This one was fairly low-tech and didn’t use a lot of CGI or computer graphics to speak of. But the story and the humor was extremely well done.
The basic story is there are these three 40 something guys who are all fairly unhappy, bored, and unsatisfied with their mundane lives. None of them have any children that they know of. Of course, there’s a twist to that coming toward the end of the movie.
One of the main characters called Violator even inadvertently by oversight sucks up too much carbon monoxide or actually attempts to kill himself. He was jamming in his garage with the car turned on. He seemed to be happy and into the jam but maybe that’s because he was ready to die.
This is never fully revealed in the movie exactly what his motives were.
But his two friends who he’s been calling a lot come to the hospital to see him. They’ve grown apart because of a number of reasons most of which being that Violator is something of an ass. He’s an alcoholic and they don’t want to be dragged down to his level.
This is where Hot Tub Time Machine starts to get interesting. It’s revealed that John Cusack’s character has a nephew who has been living with him. In an attempt to cheer up their friend Violator they go back to this ski resort that was so hot back in 1986 which is one of their greatest memories the 3 of them have together.
And Cusak brings his nephew along for the ride. This definitely upsets Violator.
They go into the resort which has radically changed and is nothing like they remember. It’s basically a ghost town.
They were sulking and whining about how bad their lives have turned out and how they were nowhere near what they thought they would be when they were there the last time. John Cusack waxes philosophic about the super cool and super hot girlfriend he had which he let get away.
Before they go home they decide to jump in the hot tub before cutting their trip a few days short by going home the next morning. And this is when things get interesting.
The Violator has brought along a Chernobly energy drink and it spills on the hot tub causing them to go back in time to 1986. Only all four of them are transported back in time.
The nephew wasn’t even born yet so he is the time paradox in this story.
The other twist is that these guys all look the same to each other but when they look in the mirror and to other people they look young like they were in 1986.
Chevy Chase makes a cameo appearance telling them exactly what they have to do and that they have to do everything exactly the same. Nothing can change. Otherwise the space-time continuum will be radically altered and Cusack’s nephew starts to fade and disappear.
Many things are revealed including who Cusack’s nephew’s father actually is. It’s quite funny and actually a little bit predictable. The movie takes another crazy twist when the Chevy Chase character tells them exactly how to get home. Once they do, this has the typical Hollywood happy ending.
I won’t give away the ending but you got to check out how the story unfolds, the twist toward the end, and how it all plays out when it’s said and done.
Leave your comments about how much you enjoyed the movie below.
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Clash of the Titans was a movie that I had greatly anticipated because I love ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Really I love ancient Greek and Roman history as a whole but especially the mythology because the stories are just so interesting. There are plenty of twists and plot turns as the gods get mixed up with men.
The main character Perseus was played by Sam Worthington who has become a very noted actor of late. I first saw him, though I did not know who he was, in the movie Terminator Salvation. He played the hybrid human Terminator mix where he had the metal endo skeleton but also a human beating heart and other actual human organs.
He was also the main character on the number one movie of all-time Avatar. So this guy has been busy and he’s become a megastar seemingly overnight. I don’t know his story but I’m sure it’s been a long time building toward his current success.
So he plays Perseus the great demigod hero who is the son of Zeus and a king Akresius’ wife. King Akresius, who had challenged the gods, was being punished. But more on that later….
At the start of the movie Perseus is with his family sailing on a ship when they across the Army or Argos which is being defiant of the gods. Perseus and his family don’t know what’s going on but the Army casts a statue of one of the gods into the sea and a great battle between them and the minions of the gods ensues.
The lowly Perseus and his family ship is damaged and sinks. Predictably, his family drowns even though he dives in the water to save them because he was cast off the ship when it capsized. Of course, all his family drowns despite his best efforts and ability to hold his breath way longer than possible. Guess it’s one of Perseus’ demigod powers.
And so we believe the hero’s journey has begun. But that is not the case because there is more to be revealed. Io his watcher, who is a demigod herself, tells him the true story of how he was conceived and who his real family was.
King Akresius was being defiant of the gods and had raised an army years ago. The gods want to destroy him and his army but Zeus took mercy. Instead, he disguised himself as the king and visited the king’s wife to impregnate her. This is when Perseus was conceived.
King Akresius was of course outraged at this discovery and cast his wife with child growing inside her belly into the ocean. But one of Perseus gifts as a demigod is that he can hold his breath for a long time and so somehow he was spared though we weren’t shown how this happened. Maybe Zeus protected him. But the queen drowned.
So now the two journey is on as our hero knows who he is and what he must do. Io tells him that he was born to kill the Kraken and stop the tyranny the Gods had perpetrated on man for all these centuries.
So he goes on a wild adventure with mythical creatures like gigantic scorpion looking things, crazy half man half demon looking dudes, wastelands and lush forest settings, and then of course the obligatory trip into the underworld to defy Hades. (Hades is the one who killed his family’s ship by sinking it)
All in all it was a rollicking tale and I highly recommend it. Even if you’re not as big a fan of Greek mythology as I am this is a tremendous action adventure movie that will get your pulse racing, hold your attention, and leave you wanting more.
Toward the end one of the main characters dies and then there’s a twist of an ending which leaves it open for a sequel. We can only hope they do make the sequel. I feel there’s a decent chance because the movie’s been number 1 for the last 2 straight weeks and is making lots of money.
Leave your comments below with any insights you have into the clash of titans movie or things you noticed.
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