How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Spoiler: what this movie is for the franchise. ‘HTTYD: Don’t!’ offers beautiful Wall-E-esque sequences which weave in and out of logical plot holes to ultimately unveil the message that integration is unnatural. Strange mix of comedic quirk and serious sentiments fails to soar to previous heights in Train’s shaky caboose.

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Hiccup grows up and his world grows out, expanding to include contrived backstory, overly complex dragon rules and countless questions about how everyone knows where they’re going.  Teen friends flirt until frozen reunion leads to most tedious dragon fight ever. Despite stilted pacing and awkward arcs, still an entertaining flight.

Movie 43

Outstanding cast of A-listers assemble to breathe life into SNL rejected short scripts… and fail. Stolen jokes, weak performances, and senseless frame story further ensure disaster.  Like ‘Funny or Die’ but mostly the latter as each segment manages a moment of humor, then milks it to painful and poisonous death. 

Law Abiding Citizen

Film seems to argue in favor of whatever morally reprehensible and deluded message Leonidas is attempting to teach Jamie Foxx. Tonally similar to reworking Saw to glorify Jigsaw into Batman. Plot feels clever for a while, but the ‘witty twist’ completely undermines the cleverness of everything else. Can’t fight fate.

How to Train Your Dragon

Baruchel’s nasal voice and a couple minor plot holes aren’t nearly enough to bring down this fantastical animated epic. Combines fantastic animation, loveable characters, great story, Leonidas’ voice, and an adorable cat-lizard Stitch dragon to make an incredible film. Fans of Harry Potter, Madagascar, or Eragon should like this instead.

Gamer

Neveldine and Taylor crank out this poorly plotted ‘Running Man’ ripoff overflowing with glitchy editing and arbitrary breast shots. Butler is decent but Sedgwick is weak, even compared to Lohman, Luda, and Leguizamo. Michael C. Hall is film’s saving grace, but still, Leonidas vs. Dexter & Terry Crews? Game Over.

300

White leader defies legislature and sends undersized force to fight symbolic battle against brown people. Similarities to real events totally coincidental. Weak story made up for by outstanding visuals and brilliant use of slow motion. Probably responsible for more men joining the military or discovering their homosexuality than any other film.