Watch Out! Dream Works is coming for ya, and honestly they have just made a better film than any of your 9 total. How to train your dragon in my opinion tops the list for animated features. I understand you have the name in your favor, and maybe some really good short films that accompany your movies, but never the less competition is on the rise. Now that the awful Over the Hedge has nearly been forgotten, Dream Works finally has a decent rap sheet. All 3 Shreks, Kung Fu Panda, and now you competitor for best animated feature How to train your Dragon. Although I do throughly enjoy each film you have made, I can honestly say that none pulled on my heart as much as Dragons did. Its sad that great movies like UP make $250 million, but movies that are amazing like Dragons is going to make $150 million. I hope you enjoy being the second best animated movie company, and if your staff disagrees with me, tell them I am sorry, but they should have thought of the idea of Dragon's being friendly in the first place.
Here is my standing from the past 10 years, the next 10 look promising your competitor.
2000-2009
Pixar - 5
Dream Works - 2
2010-2019
Pixar - 0
Dream Works - 1
Sincerely,
Corny Reviews
Alright here is what you need to know. Whoever directed this movie is amazing. The movie was shot near perfectly. Each scene pulled in the audience and didn't let go. I am not a big fan of any animated film out there. Most often they end with an extremely predictable ending, and try to hard to have comedy that the plot gets forgotten. What I liked about Dragons is that it focused completely on the plot, and payed extreme attention to detail. Unlike the TV show Lost, each element of the movie was explained, or known by the end. The audience never had to ask follow up questions from the movie because it was all there.
The voice casting I thought was excellent. Who better to play the Viking son Hiccup, who was a bit of softy, than Undeclared's, Jay Baruchal. The supporting cast was excellent as well. Gerard Butler as the father, and some comedy relief from Jonah Hill, Cloverfield cameraman TJ Miller, and Teeerget girl Kristin Wigg. They all brought the town alive, and really allowed the mostly children audience to experience the fun side to training a dragon.
The 2 things I appreciated the most were, the unconventional ending which I will let you experience for yourself, and the Dragon Training manuel. Imagine the back of Marvel collecting cards. Strength 10, Fire Blast 6, Tail spikes 7, its all there, and the writers went way out of there way to invent multiple different dragons, and have the wonderful McLovin to explain each Dragons strengths and weaknesses throughout the movie.
This movie is not for all kids. I would strongly encourage parents to think about not taking there kid if they are under 6. The movie is very violent for a kids movie, and can cause a lot of anxiety due to the stress level this movie causes you. You child WILL be on the edge of his/her seat all the way up to the ending. It does has a bit of social commentary for parents to pick up on similar to the Obesity issue in Wall-E. The movie is fun, and highly entertaining. Don't pay the extra to see it in 3D, the visuals are not nearly as good as the plot itself. I give this movie an...
EXTRA-LARGE BAG OF POPCORN
There is a reason this film is really good. The script was written and Directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders who co-wrote Mulan and Lilo and Stich as well as directing Lilo and Stich. In other words this is more of a Disney movie than a Dreamworks one. Which really shows in terms of quality of plot and writing. The saddest part of this movie is that this is a huge step forward for Dreamworks. Their next two movies coming out, Shrek: Forever After and Mega Mind, look so cookie-cutter generic Dreamworks movies it's going to ruin any chance of a step forwards for them. This movie was great for not relying on their voice talent to sell the film. If you've seen the trailers for their next films it looks like their going back into the standard Madagascar/ Over the Hedge/ Monsters vs. Aliens mold. Plus looking at their track record they have only 2 good movies, Shrek and Kung-Fu Panda. All the others absolutely sucked. So don't expect Dreamworks to ever really become a competitor against Disney/ Pixar's genius. They get lucky once in a while and then ruin a good thing with way to many crappy sequels. They'll announce the sequel to this movie soon. It'll fall somewhere between Madagascar 3 and Shrek 5. So I have to disagree with all your thoughts about Dreamworks getting it's act together. It's not. They've done this several times all ready and then failed to pull through. JUst adding my two-scents to that debate and hope to see this movie soon.
ReplyDeletei love you hubbs
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have to agree with Nate: Pixar is far superior to Dreamworks in a multitude of ways. I've heard How To Train Your Dragon is great (and I'm sure it is) but they've had far too many bombs to even be considered in the same company as Pixar.
ReplyDeleteI've never been a big fan of animated movies, but Up genuinely surprised me in terms of its emotional depth and clever storytelling. I've also heard from a reliable source that Pixar is going to start getting into live-action as well, so I think the sky is the limit for them. If Dreamworks can string together MULTIPLE critically acclaimed and almost universally beloved movies, then maybe the debate can commence; but right now, Pixar's king and it looks they aren't going anywhere.
(the "two things you loved" about this movie were actually things from the book! psych!)
ReplyDelete