And, guess what? I'm sure this will surprise you. Then (barf!) he discovers dragons are nice and he turns his former quarry into a pet. Boy Viking makes his mark by downing a dragon but not killing it. Dad doesn't think his son is ready to do so. A young Viking lad wants to battle dragons like his Dad. But, God help me, the story is appallingly familiar. How To Train Your Dragon, as uninteresting as it is, at least has dragons in it. Why then, must audiences keep encouraging the studios to grind out these mostly empty and derivative bowls of treacle? There's plenty of action, fantasy, comedies and even straight-up drama for families to see. It's not like there AREN'T movies today that are similar to the abovementioned titles. Going to the movies meant going to the movies - ANY MOVIES - so long as it wasn't pornography. And aside from Disney, I really don't remember there being that many animated movies being made, released or re-released. Hell, I remember going to grindhouses as a kid and sitting through Hammer Horror films, motorcycle movies, war pictures and British Carry On sex comedies. I remember making a deal with my Mom that if I had to sit through Mary Poppins, she had to promise to take me to see The Battle of the Bulge. Dad took me to see The Wild Bunch when I was 9. I saw every John Wayne and Clint Eastwood western. I saw the original Planet of the Apes and its multitude of sequels between the ages of 7 and 13. But these weren't the ONLY movies my parents took me to or that, when I hit the age of seven or eight, went to by myself. When I was a kid, I saw every Disney release, to be sure, but most of them were classics from the Golden Age and re-released every seven or so years to capitalize on new generations of avid viewers. Why do today's parents keep dragging their kids to see this crap? There are so many other movies they could be taking them to. Parents these days seem so starved for family entertainment that the studios just keep piling on one derivative 3-D digital delight after another. It's like what James Earl Jones says in Field of Dreams: "If you build it they will come." There's nothing especially bad about How To Train Your Dragon, but there's also nothing especially good about it.Įach time I see a new animated feature on a big screen these days, the first question that courses through the rivulets of my brain is, "Haven't I seen this somewhere before?" The second is, "Uh, like, why did they make this?" The answer to the former is a quick and resounding "Yes!" The answer to the latter comes when I look away from the screen and/or up from a rousing game of "Bejeweled" on my iPhone and realize I'm sitting amongst several hundred little nippers and their surprisingly engaged parents. Starring the voices of: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse
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