April 2010 Archives

From the animators of Shrek comes another grahical piece of eye candy for the kids.

How to Train Your Dragon is a tale about a young, accident-prone Viking who befriends a dragon. The problem is his village has been as war with the flying reptiles for centuries.

Hiccup manages to shoot a dragon down following another attack on his village. The next day he goes in search of it, only to find he's injured the creature's tail and it can't fly properly. Hiccup feels obliged to help the creature and the two secretly become friends.

Inevitably though like all films that have used this basic story before, his secret gets found out. Then it is a race against time to save the other villagers.

The film is nice in 3D but nothing special. If you opted for the 2D option you would not miss much. The story is a little bland, there are no clever plot twists or surprises along the way.
And Hiccup's voice seems to be monotone all the way through.

But with that aside the film is really good. The visuals, especially during flight scenes are beautiful and there's some good gags. Kids will definitely enjoy it.

Based on a children's book by Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon is an animated film about a young viking called Hiccup who befriends a dragon despite his tribe's long standing feud with the creatures.

Tim Burton's take on the children's classic, Alice in Wonderland does not disappoint.

Although seeing it in 3D is not quite as good as some other movies out just now and the plot is not as grown-up as originally portrayed it is still a good revamp of a story most of us only recall through Disney's earlier cartoon version.

If you did not like Disney's original cartoon film you will likely have reservations about this one. But rest assure they are ill-founded.

The story is simple enough for children to follow and the acting is good enough to keep the adults happy. Although the depth to characters is somewhat wanting.

Alice returns to Wonderland at the age of 19 and must confront the Red Queen who has taken over the land.

But Alice is convinced that she is only dreaming her experiences. She also believes her first adventures there when she was six years old was the stuff of dreams.

But it is not until the end of the film that it dawns on her that Wonderland is a real place. This is despite enough clues earlier on in the movie that would hit most other people like a brick. The audience will be forgiven for thinking that she is a little slow.