"How to Train Your Dragon 2": Better Than The First

Now In Theaters

Until very recently, I had not seen the first How to Train Your Dragon.  I’d heard about it and heard that it was good, but nothing I’d heard made me feel like I needed to see it immediately.  When I finally did sit down to watch it a couple weeks ago, I found myself charmed by the visual style and well-told story, but wasn’t very much inclined to go to the theater for the sequel.  But then, on a whim, a friend and I decided to go see it, this being her third time watching it and me finally incentivized to go to the big screen.  And as the theater lights came up and the concept art backdropped the film’s credits, I found myself wanting more.  I realize this review comes almost a month after How to Train Your Dragon 2’s release, so the film’s availability is likely going to be pretty low in the coming weeks, but I just have to get this out there: If you haven’t already, go see How to Train Your Dragon 2.  It’s a charming film that expertly expands on the premise of its predecessor, offering much more than the standard kid’s movie schlock that one normally expects from Dreamworks.

The story picks up five years after the first.  The village of Berk is a utopian vision of human-dragon cooperation, and Hiccup and Toothless fly around the surrounding islands, trying to map out the newly accessible greater world.  Hiccup’s father is trying to prime him for taking over the village one day, but Hiccup isn’t sure that’s what he wants for himself.  Meanwhile, a looming threat lies on the horizon in the form of Drago Bloodfist, a conqueror who has amassed an army of dragons in order to take over the world.  As Hiccup’s father tries to prepare Berk for war, Hiccup believes he can reason with Drago, and so sets off to find him and reason with him.  Meanwhile, the hunters-turned-riders from the first film have their own comically romantic subplot, a band of dragon trappers is discovered, and a new nest of dragons holds a plethora of mysteries to be unraveled.  If this sounds like this is a lot of running plot threads, it is, and there are more surprises waiting throughout the film.  And, surprisingly, it all works very well.  This could have easily been a retread of Hiccup’s character arc from the first film, but fortunately, this story takes the already-established world of the first film and builds a more complex tale that doesn’t leave any dangling threads by the time it’s completed.

Of course, I would be remiss to neglect mentioning the dragon designs.  The first film had some really cute renditions of dragon, creating a vastly rich world wherein every type of dragon has a name and a distinct personality.  The sequel continues this tradition not only by giving us a deeper look into the dragons’ naturally playful antics, but by providing us with new designs that really help to enrich our understanding of dragon culture.  In particular, what come to mind are the neurotic baby dragons and the alpha Bewildebeasts, who are not necessarily as vicious as the first film’s alpha dragon.  And all these new designs are accentuated by the fantastic action scenes, which have us swooping and diving with the loveable monsters and their riders.  Dreamworks really stepped up their game in animating some of these complex battles, and I’m glad to see the effort put in.

If I had to make a nitpick, I’d probably have to say that Drago isn’t really all that interesting of a villain.  Sure, there’s some stuff by the end of the film that makes him interesting in comparison to Hiccup, but for the majority of the film, he’s mostly a loud, brash villain archetype who’s just a human version of the villain dragon from the first movie.  The film has enough twists and turns where that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, though, making Drago’s invasion almost secondary to some of the greater themes at play.  And, frankly, that's just fine by me.

I’ve only scratched the surface as to what makes How to Train Your Dragon 2 so good, but to say any more would be give away some of the film’s greater surprises.  I’m sure fans of the series have seen the film multiple times already, but if any of you are still on the fence, this is definitely worth seeing on the big screen.  I only wish I’d recommended it sooner.

And now How to Train Your Dragon 3 has been announced with a 2016 release date.  Where do you think the franchise is headed as it completes a trilogy?  Think Dreamworks can pull a hat trick and make the third installment as good as the first two?  Let me know in the comments below.

"Bad Words": U-N-D-E-R-W-H-E-L-M-I-N-G

Now Available on DVD and Blu-Ray

I like Jason Bateman.  Specifically, I like Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth on Arrested Development.  Based on interviews I’ve seen with Bateman, Bluth doesn’t seem to be too far removed from Bateman’s actual personality, or at least the one that he would like to present himself as in the public eye. He’s arrogant, narcissistic, and self-important, and he’s frankly quite rude about it.  The only difference is that Bluth seems to be a self-acknowledgment of Bateman’s faults, for Arrested Development often casts Michael Bluth as be well-meaning, but ultimately just as flawed and hopeless as everyone else on that show.  Bad Words is Bateman taken to the other, unapologetic extreme, where Bateman plays a cruel, narcissistic douchebag who at first glance doesn’t evoke much sympathy.  This narcissism is accentuated by the fact that Bateman also directed and produced this movie, and as a self-promoting vehicle, this film succeeds somewhat.  However, Bateman’s first crack at directing leaves a bit to be desired, and ultimately the film doesn’t quite rise above its formula or faults of internal logic.

Bateman plays Guy Trilby, a forty-year-old man who finds a loophole in a national spelling bee competition and works his way to the finals.  Trilby’s motivations aren’t readily apparent, but what is apparent is that he does not give a fuck what anyone thinks of him or his personal quest, cursing and insulting his way past any obstacle that crosses his path.  Along the way, he is followed around by a fellow competitor named Chaitanya, age ten.  Chaitanya is niceness and innocence taken to Trilby's cartoonish opposite, and the film slaps the two guys together in a fairly typical story about learning life lessons from one another.  I can see a lot of people getting upset at the fact that Trilby gets the kid drunk and takes him out for a night of debauchery which includes staring at a prostitute’s breasts, but for the point the film is trying to make about the two characters, I think it works.

However, what doesn’t end up working for a lot of this film are the jokes.  The best jokes are the creative insults volleyed by Trilby, but those tend to lose their appeal after Trilby’s obnoxious personality becomes the expected status quo.  Without the benefit of shock value, the jokes just meander into being awkward.  Otherwise, the jokes either just don’t land as being funny, or are just plain uncomfortable, such as any time sex is brought into the picture.  The sex scenes are meant to be painful to watch, but the obvious attempt at comic delivery falls so flat that you can practically hear the crickets chirping.

But most of all, Jason Bateman just doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing in the director’s chair.  The film develops a theme by the time the climax rolls around, but some of the characters, primarily Trilby, seem to make decisions that don’t have any logic in relation to their character.  I recognize that that’s partially the fault of the screenplay, but Trilby has a change of heart toward the end of the film that could have really been better contextualized.  From a technical standpoint, the film also tends to meander into following underdeveloped plot threads that don’t really impact the overall story all that much, and seem to be there merely to pad out the already short ninety minute runtime.  Throw in a really lazily edited montage (to a fantastic Beastie Boys song, by the way), and it’s clear that Bateman doesn’t really belong at the head of the production.

There were moments of Bad Words that I enjoyed, but I ultimately didn’t find the experience worth it.  Others may disagree, and your enjoyment is primarily going to be based on how much Jason Bateman being an asshole can sustain you.  If you think ninety minutes of that will work for you, then this might not be so bad.  However, in my personal opinion, Bad Words falls short of the mark.

So, how long are we going to have to wait for that damn Arrested Development movie?  Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Looking Back At: "Rio"

I know I say this a lot for someone who opts to write about films, but sometimes it’s really hard to write anything about a particular movie.  This is usually because there isn’t much one can objectively say about the quality of the film and it comes down to personal preference for the subject matter.  This is generally where documentaries fall.  Sometimes a film is so niche that, unless you understand that very specific sub-genre very well, I only feel qualified to give a superficial analysis.  This is where martial arts films tend to fall for me.  And then there are films so bland and mediocre that it’s really hard to think of anything constructive to say about them, and are so forgettable that you write a whole opening paragraph designed just to stall having to talk about it.  Rio is one of those films.

Rio is a film that seems designed to fill out a balance sheet for Sony Pictures.  Animated kids’ films are guaranteed to make money for any studio because it seems modern parents will take their hyperactive kids to anything, regardless of quality, just to shut them up for an hour and a half.  So, presumably just to have a guaranteed cash cow, Sony pumped money into this safe little film about a parrot trying to get back to his owner in Rio de Janeiro.  The visuals are pretty, the songs are unoffensive to the palette if forgettable, and the story is about as generic as kid’s films go. 

There’s nothing really wrong with Rio… if you’re five years old.  But this is exactly the type of movie that an adult places a kid in front of because they don’t want to deal with the kid for a little while.  The jokes are the type of silly cartoon slapstick that the kids are going to love, and the eclectic cast is designed just interestingly enough to make them marketable as toys, though I’d be hard pressed to remember any of the characters’ names.  But there’s nothing much here remotely resembling writing that adults can find just as entertaining as their kids.

The only part of the film that removed the glaze over my eyes was a musical number by a villainous cockatoo played by Flight of the Conchords’s Jemaine Clement.  The witty lyrics felt like something out of FotC’s songbook, which is appropriate given that Clement was one of the song’s writers.  Unfortunately, that moment ends as abruptly as it starts, and though Clement’s silly evil diction is slightly amusing, it doesn’t save the film from being boring for anyone over the age of ten.

So, if you have kids, I can’t really say that there’s anything here that merits a disrecommendation.  If you’re looking for a cartoon for all ages, though, there’s so much better stuff out there.  Take almost anything out of Pixar’s fantastic catalogue, and you’ll not only find smarter writing, but you’ll find much more creativity and imagination in the visual design as well.  Rio is adequate at what it’s trying to be, but when all it’s trying to be is a money magnet for a parent’s disposable income, that bar is set pretty low. 

I watched this movie in preparation for the Blu-Ray release of Rio 2… I’m not hopeful for where this is going.  Leave your thoughts in a comment below.