How To Train Your Dragon 2

Yesterday my sister and I took Liam to the movies to see How To Train Your Dragon 2.  I must say that my sister and I enjoyed the movie immensely more than my toddler did.  It was a great movie for older kids and adults and any younger kids who love dragons.  As for my son, there were moments that he enjoyed it but he got bored with it and was ready to leave.  It took a lot of convincing and bribing to get him to stay for the entire movie, and it was definitely a struggle, with that being said.  I definitely loved the movie for me.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is (surprise) the sequel to How to Train Your Dragon.  It is a Dreamworks Animation film.  It is the second in a trilogy with the original coming out in 2010, and the third expected to be released in June of 2016.  It is based off of a book series with the same name by Cressida Cowell. The main character is a boy named Hiccup and his nightfury dragon named Toothless who is from a Viking culture.  This film is 5 years from the original film with the characters now as young adults.  It is quite a site to see Vikings as dragon riders.  At the end of the original film Hiccup helped his Viking village of Berk make peace with dragons.


The voice casts includes the talent of:
 Jay Baruchel as Hiccup (Are You Afraid of the Dark, She's Out of My League, Robocop, Tropic Thunder)
Cate Blanchett as Valka (Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Lord of the Rings, Blue Jasmine, Robin Hood)
Gerard Butler as Stoic (300, Olympus Has Fallen, PS I Love You, Phantom of the Opera, Gamer, Law Abiding Citizen)
Craig Ferguson as Gobber (Brave, Winne the Pooh, Drew Carey Show, The Late Late Show)
America Ferrera As Astrid (Ugly Betty, End of Watch, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Our Family Wedding)
Jonah Hill as Snotlout (21 Jump Street, Superbad, Wolf of Wallstreet, This is the End, Get Him to the Greek)
Christoper Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs (Superbad, Kickass, Role Models, Neighbors, This is the End, Year One)
Kristen Wiig as Ruffnut (Bridesmaids, Despicable Me 2, SNL, Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Friends with Kids, Paul)
Djimon Hounsou as Drago (Gladiator, Blood Diamond, Amistad, Constantine, The Island, Push, Eragon, Beauty Shop)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is the first Dreamworks Animation film to use scalable multi-core processing, which was developed with HP.  This enabled artists to work in real-time, instead of having to wait 8 hours to see the results of their work.  This was also the first film to use new animation and lighting software throughout the entire production (Premo & Torch).  This allowed subtle improvement to movement and facial features such as the the appearance of skin moving over muscle or fat jiggling.  By the end of production over 500 people had worked on the film at the Dreamworks headquarters in Glendale as well as branch offices in Redwood city and Dreamworks India in Bangalore.


The sequel was written, directed and executive produced by the same man as the original: Dean Deblois (Lilo & Stitch).  he agreed to come back on the condition that it would be a trilogy.  The entire original voice cast returned for the sequel. This film was focused on Norway as the primary location.  Overall the film has received positive critical acclaim, but is thus far unimpressed with it's overall monetary gross of $75 million to date with it currently behind 22 Jump Street in North American sales. 

I thought that this was a really great movie with a high re-watachability rate.  It made me laugh, it made me cry, I did wish for someone else to have voiced Hiccup, but otherwise the picture quality was great and the storyline was great as well with many learning points.  The characters were lovable and seeing the vast amount of different dragons that appear as butterflies was amazing.  I also enjoyed some of the dog aspects adopted in the mannerisms of the dragons.  I love the idea of this story and I think the delivery was good.  I give the film 4.5 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it, especially if your child is about 6 or 7 or older. 

Visit the official website: www.howtotrainyourdragon.com

The Croods

I have been wanting to watch this one since I first saw a preview for it.  Now that it is on netflix, I keep trying to convince Liam to watch it with me.  Finally I forced it upon him.  I can say that I enjoyed it more than he did, but he was ok with it.  He likes the visuals, but I think the moments between action would start to bore him a bit as it was more  of a story and not a musical like some kids movies are. 

In case you also have not seen The Croods, it is a 2013 3-D animated adventure comedy.  It did definitely have some hilarious moments that had me laughing.  The Croods was produced by Dreamworks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox.  The Croods are a cave dwelling prehistoric family that have their world turned upside down with the world starts to shift.  It takes place in a fictional prehistoric time with imaginary creatures.  The man of the cave (Grug) finds his place as leader and security provider threatened when a prehistoric genius gets the family to leave their comfort zone for future safety. His teenage rebel daughter Eep is enamored by Guy (the genius) which makes him even more adverse to the new guys "ideas."






The voice talent of The Croods is as follows:
Nicholas Cage as Grug (National Treasure, Ghost Rider, Lord of War, Windtalkers, Family Man)
Emma Stone as Eep  (The Help, Easy A, Amazing Spiderman, Zombieland, Superbad)
Ryan Reynolds as Guy (Green Lantern, Just Friends, Turbo, Definitely, Maybe; Smokin' Aces)
Catherine Keener as Ugga (40 Year Old Virgin, Captain Phillips, Capote, Death to Smoochy, 8 MM)
Cloris Leachman as Gran (Raising Hope, Beerfest, Malcolm in the Middle, Touched by an Angel)
Clark Duke as Thunk (Hot Tub Time Machine, Two & a Half Men, The Office, Greek, Kick-Ass)

The Croods premiered in the US in March of 2013.  It received mostly positive reviews and was considered a success with earnings of over $587 million on a $135 million budget.  This success caused the movie to launch a sequel that will be released in June in 2017 and a tv show that is already in development stages.  The Croods was the first feature film to be featured in 4DX format featuring strobe lights, tilting seats, blowing wind and fog as well as odor effects in Budapest, Hungary.  The Croods is the second highest grossing Dreamworks Film behind King Fu Panda. It received a lot higher reviews internationally and opened at number one in 54 countries.   It was nominated for many awards including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Overall I thought this was an excellent movie.  I think that the American crowd prefers the animated features with musicals.  I thought that the story line was great, it even made me cry, and had some great witty humor jokes built in.  I think that older kids and adults would enjoy it a lot more than my toddler did.  I definitely recommend this movie and give it a 4/5 stars. 

The Croods Movie Dreamworks Official Site