How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

I’m super behind on writing reviews mostly because I’m being mega lazy after tiring and long days at work.  But, I’m not slacking off.  I did try to entertain you all with food reviews and we all love to look at delicious food, right? Enough of the silliness…back to business.

I told you that I had wanted to go to a bundle of summer movies.  Two Sundays ago (I know I’m super late), my friend and I went off after dinner to go see How To Train Your Dragon 2.  I’m a HUGE fan of How to Train Your Dragon.  I mean, if I could have a room full of dragons especially Toothless, I’d do it.

Umm…okay, let me tuck away my crazy for a second and just go straight for the review 😉

Director: Dean DeBlois

Cast: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Gerard Butler, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Djimon Hounsou, Kit Harington

Its been five years since Berk has welcomed dragons into their lives as friends and companions.  Hiccup’s father, Stoick (Gerard Butler) is now trying to put on the Chief responsibilities on his shoulders much to his reluctance.  He doesn’t feel like he’s fit to take on the job when all he wants is to discover new places with Toothless. However, on one of their discoveries, they land on a iced island where they meet Eret (Kit Harington) who is a part of dragon catcher crew who helps complete the dragon army for the deadly Drago Bludvist. Drago is bad news and everyone will soon learn just how bad.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a pretty great sequel.  It doesn’t quite match up to the first one but its pretty damn close to it.  The animation is beautiful as before and the story carries on with lots of heart and even tugs at some heartstrings.  The voices are the same as before and still with lots of enthusiasm.  With the additional voices of Cate Blanchett, she never disappoints. Plus, this time around, with the dragons as part of the life in Berk, there are more dragons to see.

Its an adventurous journey for Hiccup and his group and a lot of  comedic moments as always.  The whole venturing into the new lands and discovering more plus bringing back Hiccup’s mom in the process gave it a more emotional aspect.  Cate Blanchett does a great job as Hiccup’s mom, Valka.  We understand a bit more of Hiccup in the process while this whole journey also helps him learn about himself. In the end, isn’t that really what Hiccup’s story in How to Train Your Dragon is about? On a simple level, its about finding a balance and peace between the dragons and Berk but the relationship of Toothless and Hiccup really bring a lot of heartwarming and heartbreaking moments.

Whats great about animations is that the villain is usually really well laid out for its audiences, young and old.  This one’s was Drago Bludvist, a crazy man trying to build a dragon army.  He has a secret weapon and he’s a tough guy to beat that even Stoick is a tad intimidated by him.  Drago is a great villain for this series. He’s not only dangerous to the Vikings but also the dragons.  There wasn’t one moment where I cheered for him.  I guess thats why he’s done so well, right?

In this sequel, the other characters from the first get a little bit more time also.  They haven’t quite developed much on the characters but they work great as the comic relief to make the more intense moments softer for the audience.  The addition of Kit Harrington as Eret and he sparks the flame of Ruffnut who makes for some pretty hilarious scenes and dialogue.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a great sequel that almost matches to the first.  Its beautifully animated for one.  Plus, the story never has any lingering dull moments with its excitement of discovery and surprises while also having an emotional ride as it tugs at our heartstrings to watch the familiar characters we’ve grown to love in the first one go through hardships.  Especially when Toothless and Hiccup’s relationship is put to the ultimate test.

Dreamworks has been putting out hit after hit with such surprising enjoyable animations.  It makes me hopeful for what they could possibly think up next 😉

What did you think of How To Train Your Dragon 2? Is it worthy sequel? Did you like the new characters? 

Three Quick Reviews: Accepted, Chronicle & How To Deal

This past week, I’ve been taking a break from reviews.  Before I dive into 3 short reviews, that prove I haven’t been NOT watching movies, I’d like to tell you why.

Aside from the reason of work totally burning me out, its mostly because I’ve been prepping myself for March’s recommendation month.  I’ve gotten the material watched so that I just need to worry about writing the reviews and I have some time to give it more thought.  Its something I’m working on actually.  To not watching everything last minute and then play catch up with my posts.  I’m hoping it’ll work out, but I don’t know…

Anyways, enough of that! I’m excited about recommendations month but first things first, I need to exercise those reviewing muscles.  I watched 2 of those this past week and the other one, maybe two weeks ago.  The reason I do these, its really because I’ve piled up too many movies or there’s just not enough to review in a single post.

Lets start with…

ACCEPTED (2006)

Director: Steve Pink

Cast: Justin Long, Jonah Hill, Blake Lively

Bartleby (Justin Long) and a few friends didn’t end up getting accepted into any colleges but to please their parents, they come out with a fake school and stage the whole going to college event. That is until, the word goes out and actual acceptances were done through a fluke on their website.  Bartleby ends up running the college while creating something a lot more than he expected.

Accepted is a pretty stupid comedy and it revolves around a lot of dumb(ish) humor.  A lot of times (actually, more often than not), it doesn’t work for me.  It just doesn’t so I usually run the other way.  Somehow, I remember hearing before that this wasn’t bad so one late night, while I was feeling sick and couldn’t sleep, I turned it on to make me feel better. Its a comedy so its supposed to do that.  To be honest, I can’t pinpoint the reasons, but I ended up enjoying it.  I acknowledged the stupid parts but for the most part, I liked it.  Plus, I really like Justin Long doing that nerdy/geeky sarcastic humor thing and I have no idea why…

I do realize that aside from Blake Lively in Gossip Girl and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (which I should review), she’s never been very enjoyable in movies.  Its not that she’s bad but nothing quite beats her performances especially in Gossip Girl.  Either way, average humor and its a good one to sit around, leave your brain at the door and laugh a little.

Do you like Blake Lively? How about Justin Long? Any roles you particularly enjoyed of either of them?

CHRONICLE (2012)

Director: Josh Trank

Cast: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Ashley Hinshaw

Andrew (Dane DeHaan), Matt (Alex Russell) and Steve (Michael B. Jordan) discover a hole in the middle of the woods in the outskirts and go inside to find that they have absorbed some sort of energy that allows them to have all sorts of superpowers from telekinesis to even flying.  As their power develops, they are now torn as to how to use the powers in a rightful way and not be  lead into the darker side of things.

I’m not an expert at found footage. In fact, the only found footage I’ve seen was for last year’s Halloween fest opener, Area 407 (review HERE).  Oh yeah, I hated it! Its one of the reasons I’ve been hesitant to watch Chronicle but since it was going to expire (or has as this goes up), I figured I would.  To my surprise, Chronicle turned out to be pretty good.  I’m not saying I loved it but I liked it.  They used the found footage camerawork really well and even incorporated it with not only their camera but also whoever has filming devices like someone else’s camera (using a second point of view) and phones, etc.  I seriously think for found footage, that aspect is very important.

Plus, they used decent young actors. They portrayed their roles very well.  It helped that the script was done pretty good also.  It had a very intense parts, especially once their bond grows and then starts to fade near the end with disagreeing with how their powers should be dealt with.  Plus, the ending was pretty fulfilling 🙂

Do you like found footage films? Which ones are your favorites?

HOW TO DEAL (2003)

Director: Clare Kilner

Cast: Mandy Moore, Trent Ford, Allison Janney, Alexandra Holden

Halley (Mandy Moore)has seen so many love disasters that she doesn’t believe in true love.  When her sister and then her father both announce to get married and her best friend falls madly in love, she tries to stay supportive.  However, as she starts to know Macon (Trent Ford), the best friend of her best friend’s boyfriend, she starts to like him a lot but also tries to control her feelings.  Except, is it so easy?

Ever since I rewatched A Walk to Remember for the Valentine’s Marathon HERE, I’ve been trying to find more Mandy Moore flicks.  How To Deal is a romantic comedy and although I don’t think its a really great one, its good enough to deal with.  Let me make it clear though, I liked it because of the characters in the story. I always feel that Mandy Moore is a very crush-worthy girl because she gives off this simple vibe.  Plus, Trent Ford reminds me of the more recent Tyler Blackburn from Pretty Little Liars. He has this dark, mysterious but sexy-ish appearance. Plus, they have strong supporting role from Allison Janney.

Of course, the dialogue and story itself isn’t all that great, even though it is supposedly an adaptation of two novels that I’ve never heard of. There’s something missing and the main character is really not good.  I didn’t connect with that one as well but having Mandy Moore there makes this rom-com a lot more tolerable 🙂

OVERALL…the three movies I watched were pretty much average.  I never recommend comedy as its so personal to your tastes.  Even me, I’m not quite sure if its because I was feeling sick when I saw it.  I would recommend Chronicle though.  It was definitely the best out of the three here.  It was also a surprise.  How to Deal isn’t a great romantice comedy but it does have a decent cast who helps it to be better.

Have you seen any of these? What did you think?

This is the End (2013)

Continuing with my 2013 movie viewing! I have a few more to go before the year ends, probably even heading into 2014.  Lets get the show on the road since the next few days might be more 2014 plans rather than movie reviews.  My boyfriend wanted a comedy the other night and honestly, I don’t own a lot of those so This Is The End was the first to drop into the DVD viewing. Despite everything, I’m still a bit skeptical since I don’t like a lot of similar humor to others and I have a hard time being able to laugh at something that actually looks ridiculous stupid. Lets see if it did manage to give me some LOLs 😉

Director: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogan

Cast: Seth Rogan, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson

Good buddies Jay Baruchel go to visit Seth Rogan in Los Angeles.  After a day of hanging out, Seth convinces Jay to go to James Franco’s housewarming party where a bunch of celebrities are also.  Reluctantly, Jay goes and during the night, the apocalypse hits them.  Jay, Seth, James along with Craig Robinson and Danny McBride are now barricaded in James Franco’s house until help arrives.

First of all, I’d like to make it clear than when I see Jay Baruchel on screen, I can’t help but cheer a little and hope he does good because he represents Montreal, my beautiful city.  The first shot when he arrived, he was sporting a Habs cap and even though I’ve given up on hockey, it does represent the city very much. I did a little ” You go, Jay” plus fist pump while my boyfriend shook his head and smiled.  And then by the end of the movie, I started thinking that I really can’t wait for How To Train a Dragon 2 and I wanted to see some more of Hiccup….

Second, I honestly enjoyed this a lot more than I expected.  James Franco doing funny is something I haven’t quite grasped yet and Jonah Hill really doesn’t tickle my funny bone (or maybe he does because the funny bone doesn’t make me laugh either).  Anyways, I’m not going to get technical with my terms.  You get what I mean.  And then Craig Robinson and Danny McBride is who again? I’ve never seen these dudes before so okay, the only guy fairing any form of humor for me was Jay and Seth.  But, this was funny in a stupid, shut off my brain sort of way.  And I was in one of those moods, so it all worked out.

The BEST part of the movie though was not possibly the six guys but rather all the cameos from the other celebrities.  Emma Watson was hilarious and awesome.  Channing Tatum was a huge OMG LOL moment, if you know what I mean.  I haven’t decided if I really liked Michael Cera’s cameo but it was a bit weird in my opinion.  Rihanna did get a few moments and Jason Segel had one also (and I spent a few moments trying to remember his name).  I’m sure there was a whole bunch of other people that I was naming as they popped up but I can’t remember them now.

I’m going to have to be extremely honest and say that some parts of this movie did have me yawning and I think, it just has to do with not really enjoying the humor they wanted me to like.  Still, I had a blast in the beginning and at the end.  Plus, its like a comedic way of setting out a story about bromance and at the very end, redemption/selflessness.  Whatever you want to call that.

All in all, I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as the bunch of reviews that I did see when it first came out but surprisingly, a lot of it worked for me also.  The cameos were extremely memorable and hilarious and the guys sported some nice comedic moments as well.  Not my favorite comedy but it was a very different experience and a pretty enjoyable one at that! 🙂 Comedy is something I don’t want to say I’d recommend or not, its so personal so if you like these guys, you’d want to give it a shot. If not, well, what can I say, maybe you want to see Emma Watson, not as Hermione but still being pretty bad ass? 😉

What did you think of This Is The End? Are you a fan of any of these six guys?

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

Earlier this year, I wrote a review for Bad Teacher (find it HERE) and talked about how I really liked my first experience of watching Jason Segel.  Thats when my actual friend and fellow blogger, Jelliefishie, suggested that I should check out Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  I hesitated on this one a while but then after horror and action lined up, I felt like it would be good to get some comedy in, even if it included the annoying Russell Brand.  Let’s check it out!

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Cast: Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill

Struggling musician Peter (Jason Segel) gets dumped by his 5 year TV celebrity girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell).  To escape from his pains, he goes to a Hawaiian resort where he coincidentially ends up at the same time with Sarah Marshall and his new boyfriend Aldous Snow.   (Russell Brand).  As he makes friends and tries to move on, he meets the resort front desk employee, Rachel (Mila Kunis) who helps cover up and encourage him to break out of his shell and embrace life.

I had no idea what to expect from this mostly because Jelliefishie recommends awkward humor movies.  Last time was The House Bunny which I grew to like a lot.  Funny enough, when Forgetting Sarah Marshall started, I had that feeling.  I should mention that I watched the Unrated version, since Rotten Tomatoes seem to view it as two different films.  Anyways, as the movie progressed, it actually had a lot of really funny moments and turned into a nice balance between romance and comedy.  I ended up having a really good time with this.

Jason Segel is a pretty awesome actor.  He has this silly adorable vibe.  Sometimes, thats just the charm that brings out the right level of not too sappy romance.  Maybe he was a tad overexaggerated, (or do guys that break up really act that way?) and in this unrated version, we saw him fully naked.  Did they do that in the original theatrical version? Either way, he had great chemistry with Mila Kunis.  On that note, I have seen Mila Kunis a few times in movies.  She’s actually a pretty fun actress and in this one, even I thought she had really nice style.

On the other side, Kristen Bell fit right into the role of the crazy ex girlfriend who is super full of themselves matched with the very well-deserved (still annoying) boyfriend in the form of Russell Brand.  Honestly, I don’t like him anymore after this.  I walked away halfway through one of the scenes because it was just ridiculous… That was the only downside for me.  I can see how if that type of humor was your type of thing then he was supposed to be the comedic relief.  I found many other parts funnier.   However, in the parts with him and Jonah Hill (as the waiter), those scenes were pretty epic.

Jelliefishie definitely gave me a decent recommendation.  Will it be my fave comedy? Probably not but it sure was fun! It was what I needed to lighten my mood. It had a good amount of hilarious moments, a solid cast with Jason Segel, Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell and a great supporting cast with Jonah Hill and even a cameo with Kristen Wiig.  Plus, the girls had a beautiful wardrobe and even I started wondering, how can I get Kristen Bell’s core… That aside, c’mon its in HAWAII! Who is in for a vacation Hawaii? I know I’d go in a heartbeat (if I had the money)!

I talked about Jason Segel before.  What do you think of Russell Brand? Are you into his comedy style? How about the two beautiful girls in this: Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell? Do you like them? Any notable performances that come to mind? Did you see this flick? Love to hear your thoughts 🙂

Remember to go check out Jelliefishie’s awesome blog! She’s very artistic and take awesome photos and she writes awesome stuff, even recently dipping into the world of movie reviews 🙂 I linked her up on top!

21 Jump Street (2012)

I feel like Channing Tatum is taking over my movie collection. Another one and its 21 Jump Street. I saw this about a week ago and I haven’t really been able to pinpoint how I feel about it.

Director: Phil Lord and Chris Miller

Cast: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube,  Brie Tracey, Dave Franco, Rob Riggle, Ellie Kemper, Jake Johnson

Back in high school, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) couldn’t be more different. However,  due to their own reasons they both ended up missing senior prom. Years later, they meet again in police academy and eventually become good friends and partners. When they get chosen to be part of the secret mission team, 21 Jump Street lead by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) for their young physical appearances, they have to investigate disguised as brothers in high school. Much to their surprise, the high scene has changed a lot from how they remembered it and they each need to overcome their own problems to figure out who leads the drug ring in the high school and how to arrest them to prevent it from spreading out to other schools.

The best part about this movie was the bromance. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill make for a great cop duo. Their interaction made it so funny. I’m not one to fully appreciate certain forms of humor in movies normally but this one had a few funny moments that got me.  Before this movie and just 2012 in general, I always felt that Channing Tatum had this very blank look in this face which works for the roles that he was casted in.  Some thing resembling the army/military background with some parts of him being unable to allow him to emote thoroughly. It worked alright with that character but this one, I felt like he burst out of his shell.  Of course, after that, he did Magic Mike which was totally different also.

I’m not too familiar with Jonah Hill and looking at his filmography, he’s actually voiced some parts for some pretty good animated flicks.  I wasn’t particularly pleased with his humor here by himself.  As a team with Channing Tatum, he was a lot more appealing especially when they fought like children.  The best had to be Ellie Kemper who played Ms. Griggs.  She was hilarious! I really loved Ice Cube doing Captain Dickson also.  They were the highlights of this movie.  One more mention goes out to Jake Johnson in the role of the principal of the school.  All very good supporting cast to make it even more comedic 🙂

This is pretty much an action comedy.  To me, there wasn’t a whole lot of action but the comedy was decent so its average.  It won’t be a waste of time to watch this, mostly because there are parts that prove to be surprisingly quite fun 🙂 The bromance is outstanding and you’ll have fun watching some of the on screeen chemistry go on.  It has some awkward humor here and there but it all works to its favor!

Comedy is appealing or not depending on who watches it so there really is not recommendation or not.  The best way to know is to just watch the trailer and see if that sort of thing appeals to you.  If it does, then go for it.  Its pretty enjoyable 🙂

Did you enjoy 21 Jump Street? What do you think of Channing Tatum and/or Jonah Hill?