HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2: The Film Babble Blog Review

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2
(Dir. Dean DuBois, 2014)

While I largely prefer Pixar’s output, DreamWorks Animation has had some real winners, and their 2010 hit HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is one of their very best.

An adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s series of children’s books, Dean DuBois’ wildly entertaining fantasy film is filled with a lot of heart, spirit, and a spectacular sense of adventure. It's also my 11-year old nephew Leo’s favorite movie (he claims to have watched it 18 times). 

So I took Leo (along with one of his friends, and my Sister-in-Law) to see an advance screening of the film’s follow-up, opening today at a multiplex near you, and am delighted to report that it’s a superb sequel on par with the original.

Writer/director Dubois is again at the helm, with returning lead Jay Baruchel, and thankfully, the entire all-star voice cast, including Gerald Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Jonah Hill (currently in another great sequel opening today) back for another round of training cute dragons.

Baruchel’s Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III is now in his late teens, living in his beloved mountainside village of Berk, now a peaceful haven for both Vikings and dragons. Well, as peaceful as it can be with rowdy Vikings and fire-breathing dragons living together.

With the advance in animation, Hiccup's trusted dragon pal Toothless (voiced with a combination of elephant and horse noise mixed with Sound Designer Randy Thom's voice) looks even more like my wife and my pet black cat Trillium Whorl.

Anyway, joining the cast is Hiccup's long lost mother Valka, beautifully voiced by Cate Blanchett. Valka has been away all this time creating her own haven for dragons, a ginormous island of ice populated by thousands of the mythical creatures where they are safe from dragon trappers and the blood-thirsty conqueror Drago (voiced by Djimon Hounsou). That is, until Drago learns of the habitat's existence.

The film culminates in a massive battle on the shores of the ice island involving Drago's army, a band of Hiccup's fellow Berk-sters, and two colossal alpha dragons called Bewilderbeasts.

Amid its epic scale, and richness of humor, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 has strong emotional weight to it. Hiccup's father Stoick, voiced by Butler in what may be my favorite work of his, re-uniting with Blanchett's Valka is very touching, and sets the scene for an uplifting song and dance duet between them of the Celtic-style ballad “For the Dancing and the Dreaming,” contributed by the Pogues' Shane MacGowan.

It's also a smart sequel that knows that for the stakes to really be high, a beloved character has to meet their demise (don't worry, no Spoilers!).

With many scenes that feature background dragon antics while characters in the foreground converse, and the newly minted franchise's trademark soaring flying sequences, there's always pleasurable eye candy going on, but none of which is notably enhanced by the 3D, so save your money and take the kids to a 2D screening.

My nephew Leo, who loved the movie, told me that DreamWorks already have a HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 3 in the works set for 2016. Of course they do - that's simply showbiz. But, if they can make a sequel as strong and spirited as this one, more power to them.

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New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 5/7/13

Today’s biggest release is the Tom Cruise action vehicle JACK REACHER, available in a Two-Disc Blu ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy package or a single disc DVD. The film, which I called a “cookie cutter crowd pleaser” in my review last December, is augmented by such Special Features as two audio commentaries (one with Cruise and Director Christopher McQuarrie; another with composer Joe Kramer), and three featurettes (“When the Man Comes Around,” “You Do Not Mess with Jack Reacher: Combat & Weapons,” and “The Reacher Phenomenon”).

Next up, at the same time that Jessica Chastain was getting a lot of buzz (and an Oscar nomination) for ZERO DARK THIRTY early this year, she was also appearing in Andrés Muschietti’s horror flick MAMA, out today on both single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. Special Features include a commentary with brother and sister collaborators director/co-writer Andy Muschietti and producer/co-writer Barbara Muschietti, deleted scenes, the original “Mama” short film that inspired the production, and a few “making of” featurettes. 

For reasons that elude me, a 2009 movie from high tech schlock meisters Neveldine/Taylor (the CRANK films, JONAH HEX, GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE, and some other crap), that wasn’t liked much by critics or audiences, the Gerald Butler sci-fi action thriller GAMER, has been retro-actively outfitted in 3D for a new Blu ray release today. As the previous Blu ray release of the film, from 2010, has more bonus material (including a couple of commentaries) than this new version only containing a few featurettes, it seems this new edition’s only draw is its 3D conversion. Sure isn’t enough to draw me in as for it was a pretty bad film to begin with. 

A much better Blu ray experience of battle action can be found on the new History Channel special WWII From Space, which boasts that it’s “America’s war as never seen before from the unique vantage point of space.” That means this Blu ray features CGI recreations from a satellite view of such major historical World War II events like Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and Stalingrad. 

It may sound cheesy (and it is in shots that too much resemble the angles from Michael Bay’s 2001 atrocity PEARL HARBOR), but overall the approach is pretty impressive, with the vivid shiny imagery, along with interview sound-bites from experts like Lt. General Raymond V Mason, Richard Overy (author of the bestseller “How The Allies Won The War”), and Pulitzer prize winning historian David Kennedy helping to provide an immersive overview. No Special Features, but that’s no biggie. 

Another worthwhile release today on the historical documentary front is Leslie Iwerks’ CITIZEN HEARST, only available on DVD, which examines the vast media game-changing empire of William Randolph Hearst, that Orson Welles' immortal classic CITIZEN KANE apparently only tangentially touched on, with the tagline: “125 years in the making.” The well-made, swiftly-paced, and nicely narrated (by William H. Macy) film is enhanced by such bonus material as the “Hearst Castle” episode from the A & E television series America’s Castles, and over 30 minutes of deleted footage.

Also on that front is the release, also only on DVD, of the 4 part HBO documentary series Witness: A World of Conflict Through a Lens, from executive producer Michael Mann, executive producer/director David Frankham, and director Abdallah Omeish. Respectively the programs cover Juarez, Libya, South Sudan, and Rio as covered by three noted combat photographers (Eros Hoagland, Michael Christopher Brown and Veronique de Viguerie). No Special features, but with a running time of 187 minutes, it sure doesn’t need any.

Finally, an interesting indie called STARLET, directed by Sean S. Baker (TAKE OUT, PRINCE OF BROADWAY), hits Blu ray and DVD in single disc editions. Mariel Hemingway's 21-year old model/actress daughter Dree, stars as a flighty young woman living in the San Fernando Valley with stoner roommates (Stella Maeve and James Ransone), who befriends a cranky 85-year old lady (the late Besedka Johnson in her only film role). Bonus material: commentary with director Baker along with cast and crew, audition/rehearsal footage, and a few featurettes.

For more of today’s new releases, check out Amazon’s extensive list of titles (i.e. much more than I could even hope to cover).

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Supremely Stupid OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN Falls Short Of Even Being So Bad It's Good

Now playing at nearly every multiplex in Raleigh and the Triangle area:

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN 
(Dir. Antoine Fuqua, 2013)

It’s DIE HARD at the White House! It’s AIR FORCE ONE on the ground! It’s INDEPENDENCE DAY meets DEEP IMPACT with the aliens and the meteor replaced with an attack by terrorists!

Yep, if you’re even a semi-regular at the multiplex, chances are you’ve experienced every single element that makes up Antoine Fuqua’s new action/disaster movie, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, featuring Gerald Butler as a Secret Service Agent fighting to protect the President (Aaron Eckhart) from a team of Korean terrorists led by the suave well-groomed Rick Yune.

When the film opens it feels like a subpar episode of The West Wing, with President Eckhart doting on the First Lady (Ashley Judd) and their son (Finley Jacobsen) as they depart Camp David with their trusted beloved guard Butler overseeing their transit. Then in the first of many derivative set-pieces, their motorcade gets into an accident due to a violent snowstorm, and Butler is unable to save Judd’s life.

18 months later, Butler is working a desk job at the Treasury (with a great view of the White House out his window he can look longingly at), but he tells Secret Service Head Angela Bassett that he wants back in the game.

Turns out it’s his lucky day because Washington D.C. gets hit hard by a crew of heavily armed, highly trained extremists, who by way of an aerial attack, car bombs, and soldiers disguised as citizens take over the White House (code name: Olympus), leaving its lawn and Pennsylvania Avenue strewn with dead bodies.

Butler, finds his way through gunfire and explosions to get inside the walls of the White House, while the President is 150 feet below the White House grounds in a bunker held hostage by Yune. With the President is the Vice President (Phil Austin), the Secretary of Defense (Melissa Leo), and a fellow agent of Butler’s played by Dylan McDermott. These folks names and occupations are told to us in tiny type on the screen so we’ll know they’re important.

Also given to us is the location and time, as in when Butler finds himself in the Oval Office: “Oval Office, 9:04 P.M.”

The DIE HARD formula comes into play in a scene in which our hero Butler encounters a bad guy he doesn’t know is a baddie (see John McClane’s oblivious meeting with villain Hans Gruber in the ’88 original), and we get to see the White House getting even more demolished. It was so much cooler when it was done by aliens; the explosions aren’t as vivid here. 

This movie is also another in the long line of indestructible badass movies with Butler being able to take out waves of thugs, like Liam Neeson in TAKEN, Daniel Craig’s 007, or Jason Stratham in every Jason Stratham movie so there’s no surprises or thrills in the poorly shot and lit fight scenes throughout.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is supreme stupidity on an epic scale with a ridiculously awful screenplay, written by first time screenwriters Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt or at least a screenwriting computer program they used.

I did enjoy laughing at it when I wasn’t rolling my eyes, and counting the clichés, but the mundane mechanics wore on me as the thing kept on chugging along. A lot of genre exercises can’t help but appear like collections of stock elements. I had a severe case of cinematic de ja vu when seeing JACK REACHER last year, with its done-to-death formula, but there was at least some passion involved there.

Without an original bone in its body and not an ounce of oomph to make it memorable, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN falls way short of even being so bad it’s good.

To borrow a line from one of my favorite movies, Terry Zwigoff’s GHOST WORLD: “This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again.”

More later...