She’s Out of My League

Beauty and the Geek.

(2010) Romantic Comedy (DreamWorks) Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, T.J. Miller, Nate Torrence, Krysten Ritter, Lindsay Sloane, Mike Vogel, Kyle Bornheimer, Jessica St. Clair, Debra Jo Rupp, Adam LaFevre, Kim Shaw. Directed by Jim Field Smith

There are some couples who are perfectly suited for one another. Everything just seems to mesh. You just take one look at them and you know they were meant to be together. Then there are other couples that you wonder what the hell they’re doing together at all.

Kirk (Baruchel) works for the TSA at the Pittsburgh airport. An awkward, gangly sort but a sweet guy at his core, he has just gotten over a breakup with Marnie (Sloane), a bitchy sort who inexplicably has charmed Kirk’s parents and is essentially part of the family now, including her new boyfriend. They’re getting ready to take a family trip to Branson, Missouri – complete with matching t-shirts. Henpecked Kirk is the object of scorn even in his own family.

Then who should walk through his security check station but Molly (Eve), a super-hot party planner who was once a lawyer. When she forgets her iPhone, Kirk offers to return it to her when she returns to Pittsburgh. When he does, the two hit it off and she invites him to one of her parties. Before long, his sweet nature wins her over, much to the chagrin of his friends as well as hers.

His friends are basically slackers with jobs including Stainer (Miller), Jack (Vogel) and Devon (Torrence). They opine that Kirk is basically a five – at best – and Molly is a ten – a hard ten. And, as we all know, you can never move more than two places in either direction. This whole relationship is an aberration, against the laws of nature.

Naturally Kirk’s own insecurities begin to take root. He’s painfully aware of how much better looking Molly is than he is and is convinced that Molly is pity-dating him. What’s surprising is that Molly has insecurities of her own and between the two of them what could be a good thing could rapidly become a nightmare.

As the recent crop of romantic comedies go, this is better written than most. However, there are places where you feel like Smith, a member of the British sketch troupe The Dutch Elm Conservatoire and making his feature film directing debut here, is going for a Judd Apatow-like feel to the film but without the bite Apatow brings to his projects. Unfortunately, the script is too sweet at its heart to really do that effectively.

The source of the sweetness is primarily Baruchel. He has a nasal, somewhat pedantic delivery of lines that I’ve found annoying in other movies but it works here. His character is nerdy but sweet-natured at the core, which is the kind of role he seems to do best in having played it in several other movies.

Alice Eve is suitably gorgeous here, and she plays her role with a little more smarts than you might think it called for. Other movies would have just asked for interchangeable cleavage which is how some reviewers seemed to think this one was. Nah ah, ink stain breath; this is a part that required depth and Eve provided it. End of story.

There are elements of romantic comedy 101 here, however plus the Apatow wannabe syndrome. Those serve to torpedo the better elements of the movie which, in places, are charming and sweet. Some of the humor – such as a premature ejaculation bit and a very strange bit on male genital grooming – almost seemed like they came out of other movies.

The relationship between Kirk and Molly is what works best about the movie. These are two seemingly disparate people who get together for all the right reasons – something that is less common in reality than you might think. When the movie concentrates on that relationship, it is at its best. When the movie delves into comic reasons to break them apart, well, not so good.

WHY RENT THIS: Alice Eve is actually pretty good and totally hot. The movie is sweet in places.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Baruchel’s sad sack character is too much like other characters he’s played. Plot seems too much like an Apatow movie, only without Judd Apatow.

FAMILY VALUES: There is a goodly amount of bad language and some sexual content.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: During a scene when Kirk’s friends are teasing him about a premature ejaculation, Jack’s hamburger is seen to have French Fries in the bun. This is how they are served at Primanti Brothers, a Pittsburgh institution. 

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a faux talk show starring Torrence as a date advice host.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $48.8M on a $20M production budget; the movie was profitable.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Tooth Fairy

Fanboys

Fanboys on the outside looking in.

(2008) Comedy (Weinstein) Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler, Jay Baruchel, Kristen Bell, Carrie Fisher, Danny Trejo, Billy Dee Williams, Seth Rogen, Allie Grant, William Shatner. Directed by Kyle Newman

Fans have a kind of sweet madness. I’m not talking about the people who follow something on a casual basis; I mean the full-out, balls-to-the-wall, obsessive, dangerously knowledgeable super-fans; the kind that show up at conventions and name their kids after characters in the movies.

This specific fandom that Fanboys is examining is the Star Wars fans. The movie is set in 1998, just prior to the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and arguably the best time to be a fan of the series – when anticipation had fans jumping out of their skins waiting for the new movie, the first in more than 15 years.

Four school friends who hadn’t been together since graduation meet up at a party; Eric (Huntington), the lone respectable one who was working for his dad’s car dealership which he was expected to take over some day; Hutch (Fogler) who lives in his mom’s “carriage house” (read: garage), Windows (Baruchel) a computer nerd who has a thing for a chat room geek he’s never met and Linus (Marquette), who is somewhat angry about the way things turned out.

It turns out he has plenty of reason to be angry; he has cancer and won’t live to see the next movie in the franchise released. Eric, who was once his best friend, resumes that role and decides that his friend WILL see the movie before anyone else does. The four of them – and Zoe (Bell), a very cool friend that frequents the comic book store Hutch and Windows work at and quite possibly the only girl that could hang with these guys – will drive from Ohio to Marin County, California where Skywalker Ranch is located, break in and watch the movie. Windows’ online crush even claims she can get them the plans to the Ranch which is legendary for its security.

They take off in Hutch’s tricked out van, a kind of rolling convention on wheels, and head vaguely West. On the way they will encounter evil Star Trek fans, the all-knowing Harry Knowles (of Ain’t It Cool News fame) and William Shatner himself as they race the clock to get their dying friend to the ranch. Will it be worth the trip?

Of course, we all know at this point in time that The Phantom Menace was a disappointment but back then the possibilities were endless. The world of fans was anticipating what they thought would be an epic movie and nearly every fan website was in a dither. It was a kinder world.

However, the story of this movie might have made a good movie of its own. The movie was completed back in 2007 but was shelved by studio head Harvey Weinstein who felt the cancer subplot was too grim for the comedy he wanted; he also felt it appealed to a niche audience and not a general one. Both are legitimate points.

Director Newman fought the changes and Weinstein eventually assigned director Steven Brill to reshoot some scenes and re-edit it. Fans went ballistic, launching a campaign to stop the changes, opening MySpace pages (“Stop Darth Weinstein”) and threatening to boycott Superhero Movie en masse. I’m not so sure that was a threat so much as a relief.

Eventually Weinstein relented and allowed Newman to re-cut the movie a third time…only he gave him only 36 hours to do the work. The movie bounced from release date to release date over the course of three years until it finally got an extremely limited release in February 2009 and, as you can see from the box office performance below, died like the Emperor at the end of Return of the Jedi.

It’s kind of a shame because the movie isn’t too bad. It got a critical shellacking which, frankly, illustrates why critics are out of touch with the audience that comes to the movies. People do get involved with their favorite franchises. Laugh and make fun if you want to, but it fulfills something in people, be it Trekkers, Star Wars fan or Twilighters. Those who judge the lifestyles of these people are the ones who really need to get a life.

For the most part, the performances here are okay although there’s nothing here that’s going to supercharge any careers. Baruchel is sweet as Windows and Marquette has some nice scenes as Linus. Mostly, the star power is in the cameos and there are plenty of those, from Star Wars vets Fisher and Williams to Shatner and Rogen (who is amusing as an overbearing Trek fan).

There are a lot of asides that will have knowing fans nodding in satisfaction; I can see how audiences not super-familiar with the Star Wars saga might feel left out a little. However, the movie really isn’t for them anyway. The DVD extras on several occasions call this a love letter to Star Wars but I don’t think it actually ends up that way. It’s more a love letter to the fans, and not just of Star Wars but of all things that excite the imagination and promote obsession. It’s sweet-natured and while not everything works, I am positive that the love is sincere. I’d much rather see a movie like this one than a thousand big budget big star comedies whose sole reason for being is to fatten the bank accounts of those involved. Sincerity trumps budget every time.

WHY RENT THIS: A very sweet homage to fandom, particularly that of Star Wars. Some of the cameos are actually well thought-out.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A bit gratuitous in places and the humor – well heck the whole dang movie – is going to appeal to a very limited audience; some of the references will go right over the heads of ordinary folk.

FAMILY VALUES: There is a lot of crude humor, much of it sexual (as you might expect from a bunch of guys who don’t get laid much). There’s also some drug use in the movie, as well as a heaping helping of foul language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The guards at Skywalker Ranch wear uniforms from THX-1138, one of Lucas’ early films (and one he references regularly in subsequent films). The head guard is played in a cameo appearance by Ray Park, who played Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is some webisodes that were available before the movie’s release, as well as a character study but really, most of the extras are relatively mundane as these things go.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $960,828 on an unreported production budget; the film was undoubtedly a flop.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: The Answer Man

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

You know it's love when you're alone in a crowded room.

(Screen Gems) Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Jay Baruchel, Rafi Gavron, Aaron Yoo, Alexis Dzieno, Jonathan B. Wright, Zachary Booth. Directed by Nick Sollett

They say that there is somebody out there for everyone. I suppose that’s also true of insufferable, sensitive hipsters with indie rock leanings.

Nick (Cera) has broken up with his girlfriend Tris (Dzieno); well, it’s more like she broke up with him and while his head realizes it, his heart doesn’t. He leaves her pathetic messages on her answering machines and has made a series of “breakup” mix tapes which are numbering in the double figures at this point.

Tris, like Nick, is a high school senior and she doesn’t have time for mopey losers like him. She already has a new boyfriend and is more concerned with having fun her senior year. She wants to go out, and her besties Caroline (Graynor) and Norah (Dennings) must go with her. Caroline, a party girl of epic proportions is fine with that but Norah, who is less outgoing, is just along for the ride. As Tris throws another mix CD from Nick into the trash, Norah retrieves it, convinced that Nick (who she’s never met) is her musical soul mate.

Nick is certainly musical; he is the only straight member of a New York indie rock band called the Jerk Offs along with butch gays Dev (Gavron) and Thom (Yoo). Apparently their only purpose in life is to jumpstart Nick’s romantic life, since they are sick and tired of Nick moping around. So when Norah kisses Nick in order to make an ex-boyfriend (Baruchel as the loathsome Tal) jealous, they are only too happy to nurture a budding romance, even though neither Nick nor Nora have any romantic intentions in the slightest.

They both have a good deal of baggage; Nick with his lovesickness, Norah with being the daughter of a music industry legend which, while it gets her into clubs without standing in line, often leaves her wondering if the friends in her life are only in it for the perks she brings to the table. She might not be wrong on that score.

As it turns out, Nick’s favorite band (and Norah’s too) Where’s Fluffy are playing a surprise mystery show somewhere in Manhattan and a number of clues have been left as to its location in toilets and clubs around town (I often get my information in toilet stalls, don’t you?) and most of the Scooby gang are eager to chase down this Epic band of Awesomeness.

Unfortunately, Caroline gets soooooooooooooo wasted that she needs to go home and it is up to the gay bandmates to get her there, but she flees when she figures out she’s in a strange van and so the rest of the movie is spent finding Caroline and, in the case of Nick and Norah, romance as well.

Let’s get a couple of things straight; I have no problem with indie rockers, twee hipsters or romantic comedies in general. I don’t even have any problems with high school kids. I do have issues with movies that purport to talk down to me and tell me that because I don’t like Vampire Weekend I’m some sort of clueless idiot. I also don’t like movies that paint themselves in hip colors but are really disguising the fact that they’re a standard Hollywood romantic comedy, even if they started out life as a novel.

The soundtrack for the movie is awesome, as a matter of fact; whoever picked out the music (and the highly cool Bishop Allen makes a concert appearance in the movie) can pick out my Infinite Playlist anytime they want. However, I have an issue with the movie’s internal logic. Here, the kids exist in a kind of fairyland New York City where there’s plenty of street parking, nothing bad ever happens to young women in cocktail dresses left deserted at the side of the East River in the early hours of the morning. In this world, suburban New Jersey kids are apparently able to spend the entire night out in the Big Apple without their parents freaking out and calling the National Guard. In this fairyland New York City, no parents appear other than Norah’s dad and even he is merely a picture on the wall. His presence exists to get Norah into nightclubs.

Cera is an actor who has plenty of appeal; I can see it. What he doesn’t appear to have is the ability to vary his performance much. He’s the same guy in Superbad and Juno - hell, he plays the same guy in Paper Heart when he’s purportedly playing himself. We get it – he’s sensitive, kind and far cooler than anyone else in the room. He just doesn’t play a character I connect with.

Dennings has some real chemistry with Cera and that is what makes the movie more than just a soundtrack with pictures. She’s funny, she is less too-hip than the other characters in the movie and she alone of all the people who get more than a few moments of screen time is the one I’d want to hang out with.

I will give the filmmakers credit for utilizing their location to its best. This isn’t the highbrow Manhattan of Sex and the City but more like the underground Chicago of High Fidelity. These people may have the same taste in music that I do, but they are not my people.

WHY RENT THIS: The soundtrack is great, and there is considerable warmth at the movie’s heart.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: It’s too self-consciously hip for its own good, and while I dug the music, I didn’t want to spend any time with the people.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some lewd and crude behavior, a smattering of foul language, a bit of sexuality and some mature themes, including teen drinking and drug use.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The names of the title characters are based on Nick and Nora Charles, the main characters of the “Thin Man” series of books and movies.  

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a music video for “Middle Management” by Bishop Allen, the song that is played at the club when Nick and Norah first meet; there’s a faux interview given by American Pie’s Eddie Kaye Thomas with the pair, and a puppet version of the movie performed by Kat Dennings and a group of cardboard cutout puppets (with many bear attacks thrown in for good measure). 

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: The Open Road

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Alfred Molina is disturbed to discover that Nicolas Cage has blue balls.

(Disney) Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Monica Bellucci, Toby Kebbell, Alice Krige, Omar Benson Miller, Jake Cherry, James A. Stephens, Gregory Woo, Peyton Roi List, Nicole Ehringer, Ian McShane (voice). Directed by Jon Turtletaub

 The world is a magical place, even the parts we can see. There exists a whole world, however, that we can’t, one in which the impossible is commonplace, and in that world good battles evil incessantly, barely in the lead although not without cost.

Balthazar Blake (Cage) is one of the three apprentices to Merlin (Stephens) – yes, that one – back in 840 AD, along with Veronica (Bellucci) and Horvath (Molina). All of them are in conflict with Morgana le Fay (Krige), who wants to enslave the world by using a spell called The Rising, which will raise the dead into an army for her. She probably should have put in a call to George A. Romero.

Horvath betrays his fellows and Veronica takes a bullet for Balthazar, winding up imprisoned along with Morgana in a grimhold, a nesting doll that acts like a prison. As the years roll by, Balthazar adds more of Morgana’s followers to the grimhold as additional layers to the doll until he finally captures Horvath himself.

But Balthazar’s work is far from done. The dying Merlin told Balthazar that only one sorcerer can truly destroy Morgana and it is Balthazar’s job to find him. It only takes about 1200 years, but Balthazar finally locates him. Talk about determination!

Young Dave (Cherry) goes on a school field trip and spends most of it trying to get the attention of a comely young blonde named Becky Barnes (List), whom he asks in a note if she’s interested in him as a friend or a girlfriend. Becky checks the appropriate box, but a coincidental wind blows the note all the way to a curio shop named Arcana Cabana which is run by – you guessed it – Balthazar. Using the test of a dragon ring, Balthazar realizes that Dave is the one he’s looking for; the Prime Merlinian. Note to writers: where do you come up with these names? It sounds like something dreamed up by a panel of math geeks at an MIT calculus conference.

Because he’s nine (or ten, depending on who you ask) years old, Dave manages to release Horvath from the nesting doll…err, grimhold, and all Hades breaks loose. Balthazar and Horvath manage to be sucked into a magical urn that will hold them for ten years to the day. Why? Just because.

Ten years later, the adult Dave (Baruchel) is a physics nerd at NYU when he runs into old flame Becky (Palmer) when he runs a physics primer for English majors, which is an idea which no doubt the administrators at NYU are scratching their heads and wondering “wha…?” about. Although apparently without a job and no visible means of support, Dave has placed several eight-foot Tesla coils together in an unauthorized lab in a subway turnaround. Why? Just because.

Of course, now the two wizards are out of their urn and looking for that grimhold, Balthazar so that he can protect the world and potentially destroy Morgana once and for all, and Horvath because he wants to resurrect Morgana and destroy the world. Why? Just because.

Balthazar knows he needs to teach Dave the basics of magic and quickly because (queue serious music) the fate of the world rests in his hands. Why? Just…oh you know what comes next.

The trio of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Turtletaub and Cage has previously teamed up in the two National Treasure movies, which I found to be a seriously entertaining take on the Indiana Jones movies. This one is less effective although it still remains entertaining. This movie is a bit of a mash-up between genres, an action movie blended with a fantasy movie, sort of like Harry Potter in Die Hard. Expelliarmus mothereffer!

Cage and Molina are effective here, and you get the feeling there is a bit of a nudge and a wink in their work. They spend most of the movie lobbing plasma balls and one-liners at one another. Baruchel is less effective for me. He is the perennial dweeb in movies over the last few years, and I can understand why he was cast – Dave is certainly a science nerd. However, his hunched over posture, perpetual whining coupled with his inability to make intelligent choices, made it very hard for me to root for him. I was kind of hoping that Cage would turn him into a newt and save the day.

There is plenty of eye candy and most of it is pretty decent, although there’s a ton of plasma balls, fire streams and lightning bolts hurtling around. Some real cool sequences include a Chinese dragon (which while it was chasing Dave, made me think inadvertently of the much better movie How to Train a Dragon which featured Baruchel’s voice) and a steel eagle from the Chrysler building. There is also an homage to the sequence in Fantasia that inspired this movie which I enjoyed.

The trouble with movies about magic is that sorcerer’s should be pretty much invincible, particularly ones as powerful as these. For example, there is an extended car chase sequence in the last third of the movie; very well done, but it seemed to be fairly pedestrian. They could have easily done a chase with something more imaginative – invisible horses, beams of light, anything – and you would think that a sorcerer could wave his arms and turn the car into a mule.

Similarly, a crucial plot point involves Becky moving a satellite dish so that a spell can go awry. Wouldn’t the sorcerer casting the spell be able to move the satellite dish back into place? After all, they’ve been moving objects telekinetically throughout the movie.

But I digress. Anyone going to a movie like this and expecting Scorsese is a lunatic. This is Bruckheimer, and he excels at movies that entertain on a visceral level rather than inspire or educate, and that’s fine folks – we all need mindless entertainment once in awhile. However, I would have expected a movie about magic to be more, well, magical. Definitely this is entertaining, but it could have been done so much better with a bit more imagination.

REASONS TO GO: Cage and Molina do some pretty solid work here. The eye candy is effective.

REASONS TO STAY: Baruchel is a bit too whiny and foolish to get behind as a heroic lead. The whole car chase sequence seemed unnecessary and could have been handled more imaginatively.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a bit of fantasy violence and some scenes of brief sexuality, but for the most part should be okay for audiences of all ages, although some of the creatures might be a little scary for the littlest of kids.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The character of Abigail Williams is based on an actual person who was accused of being a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in the 17^th century, ran away and was never heard from again.

HOME OR THEATER: There are enough sequences that have the gee-whiz factor that I give a slight nod towards seeing it in the theater.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: My Life in Ruins

New Releases for the Week of July 16, 2010

Paris is beginning to look more and more like San Francisco.

INCEPTION

(Warner Brothers) Leonardo di Caprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger. Directed by Christopher Nolan

In the future, Dom Cobb is a thief who specializes in extracting the secrets of others through their dreams. He is very skilled at what he does and has made a lucrative living, but he has paid a heavy price. A fugitive, his skills have cost him everything he holds dear. One last job will give him a chance to redeem himself; but rather than taking secrets, he is going to implant an idea instead. However, standing in the way of him and his team is a hidden enemy who seems to know every move they make before they do. Is this the perfect crime or the perfect set-up?

See the trailer, clips, featurettes, interviews and web-only content here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard and IMAX

Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action throughout)

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

(IFC) Joan Rivers, Kathy Griffin, Melissa Rivers, Don Rickles. The iconic comedienne is the subject of this surprising documentary that shows her struggles in maintaining her career in a culture that worships youth and discards the elderly. Through the words of her friends, family and the legendary performer herself, we revisit the tragedies and triumphs of a groundbreaking female comic who became a household name in an era when the stand-up world was dominated by men.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for language and some sexual material)

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

(Disney) Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer. An ancient sorcerer has been protecting Manhattan against his evil nemesis, but it is becoming apparent that the sorcerer needs help. He takes on a reluctant apprentice and gives him a crash course in the ways of magic. The new sorcerer will need to learn quickly and work with his mentor perfectly or risk losing everything to an evil beyond measure.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG (for fantasy action violence, some mild rude humor and brief language)

The Square

(Apparition) David Roberts, Claire van der Bloom, Anthony Hayes, Joel Edgerton. In the grand tradition of Double Indemnity and Body Heat, this Aussie-set suspense movie sees an affair between a married man and a married woman. When her criminal husband hides his illicit loot in plain sight, she hatches a plot with her lover to steal the money and utilize a professional arsonist to hide their tracks. The plan backfires and things go from bad to worse in this acclaimed thriller.

See the trailer, featurettes and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for violence and language)

Standing Ovation

(Rocky Mountain) The 5 Ovations, The Wiggses, Alanna Palumbo, Joei DeCarlo. A national tween music video contest pits two groups of friends against each other. They will leave everything on the stage as they set outdo each other in music, choreography and costuming while enduring the wackiness of modern tween life. Someone pass me the insulin.

See the trailer, interviews and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG (for some rude behavior)

How to Train Your Dragon

Hiccup and Toothless take flight.

(DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kirsten Wiig, T.J. Miller, Robin Atkin Downes, Phillip McGrade, Kieron Elliott, Ashley Jansen. Directed by Chris Sanders and Dean deBlois

Most of us have a preconceived notion of things. We live our lives in a kind of ordered routine, never questioning whether our ideas of how the world works are actually correct.

The village of Berk sits on a mountainous island in the North. It is, we are told, a very old village – but the houses are all new. That is because the village has a pest problem. Not spiders, termites or mosquitoes but dragons. Lots and lots of dragons of every shape and size. Dragons that breathe fire and swoop from the sky. Some have many eyes, others have many heads. Some are long and slender, others short and fat. They come in every color of the rainbow, and some are as black as night.

Those are the dreaded Night Furies, nearly invisible and lightning-fast. Rather than breathing fire, they emit a kind of pulse wave that flattens everything in its path. They are the most feared of all dragons and no Viking has ever seen one, much less killed one.

You see, the village of Berk has another pest, but those are the ones who actually live there. They’re Vikings and not just any Vikings, they’re Scottish Vikings. I know, I’m confused too; I had understood most Vikings to be Scandinavian but apparently I was mistaken. They’re Scots. All they’re missing are kilts. They do have, however, odd names meant to show how fearsome they are.

The most fearsome of the Scots…err, Vikings…is Stoick (Butler), a massive bull of a man with massive red hair and an equally massive red beard who is the most brave, most fearless and most ferocious of the Vikings. His son however, is not what you’d call a chip off the old block. His name is Hiccup (Baruchel) and he is as scrawny as his dad is beefy. He dreams of being a true Viking, a noble slayer of dragons but he doesn’t have the brawn and when the village is attacked, is banished to the armory to sharpen swords and spears with the one-armed, one-legged Cobber (Ferguson), who was once a fearsome warrior himself but now must content himself with training them and arming them.

One thing Hiccup is good at is engineering machines, and he creates a cannon that can launch a bolo a great distance. Despite the misgivings of Cobber and Stoick, he pulls out the cannon to a hillside but it is so dark he can’t see the dragons flying around in the night sky. Aiming and firing at what he hopes is a dragon, he is surprised when he actually hits something. However, he has a hard time being able to tell what it was and where it fell to.

Stoick knows that the Vikings are losing the war against the dragons. Their only hope to end this war once and for all is to find the dragons’ nest and destroy it. He intends to lead an expedition to do just that but before he goes Cobber advises him to put Hiccup into dragon fighter training, which Stoick knows will probably be another humiliation for his son, but he has really hit bottom.

Hiccup is in a class with the aggressive and pretty Astrid (Ferrara) as well as the cocky Snotlout (Hill), the overly intellectual Fishlegs (Mintz-Plasse) and the warring twins Ruffnut (Wiig) and Tuffnut (Miller). Cobber leads the class and as expected, Hiccup is an absolute failure. Cobber gives the class a book that contains all the information about the different types of dragons that the Vikings know about with orders to read it which the others almost disdainfully turn down. Hiccup takes the book to study it. Know thy enemy, after all.

In the meantime, he goes searching for the dragon he might have taken down and comes upon it in a quarry-like valley. It is all-black and nothing like what Hiccup expected. Here, at last, is his chance to kill a dragon, his chance to be a Viking, respected and admired.

Except the dragon is just as frightened as he is and Hiccup can’t bring himself to kill it. He resolves instead to get to know it, especially when he discovers that the dragon was wounded in the attack and is unable to fly out of the quarry or hunt. Hiccup helps to feed the dragon whom he names Toothless for its retractable teeth. Eventually Hiccup learns how to disable dragons with a single touch, and how to frighten them with eels and so becomes an unlikely success in his class. For his part, he designs a mechanical solution to help Toothless fly again and becomes Toothless’ pilot. The two become reliant on one another.

In the meantime, Stoick returns from an unsuccessful venture but is pleased and proud to hear that his son is finally doing well at something. Hiccup’s success in class has reaped the reward of the honor of being the first in his class to be allowed to kill a dragon. However, Hiccup has discovered that dragons are not the evil creatures the Vikings believe them to be and has learned the secret of their lair, the key to destroying the dragons altogether but within the lair is another secret that changes the dynamic altogether. Can he convince his father, who has never listened to a word he’s said his entire life, that he must change his viewpoint or will both dragon and men perish together at the hands of something far worse?

The latest from DreamWorks Animation may very well be among their best. It certainly ranks up there with Kung Fu Panda and Shrek. Directors Sanders and deBlois, who collaborated on Lilo and Stitch for Disney (deBlois also directed the excellent Sigur Ros concert film Heima), have made a film that soars, literally. The scenes in which Toothless and Hiccup fly together are some of the best animated sequences you’re likely to see this year. We saw the movie in IMAX 3D, and that lent a great deal of immersion to the proceedings. It comes as no surprise that the directors previously were responsible for Stitch; Toothless has a great deal of visual similarity to the alien creature of that movie.

The story, based on the book by Cressida Cowell, is very much Animated Feature 101 and doesn’t hold very many surprises. Still, the dialogue is witty in places and Baruchel is superb as the acerbic Hiccup. This is a movie that is certainly intended for much younger audiences (think single digits) and while adults might get a kick out of certain sequences (particularly the flying ones), for the most part it might bore older children and teens and some of the dragons might terrify the easily frightened.

Still, I found the movie has a certain lopsided charm that I can’t ignore. It’s one of those cases where the sum of the parts doesn’t equal to the whole, and the whole is greater than the sum of those parts. That’s a good thing, incidentally; even if I can’t necessarily explain that charm, I can nonetheless report that it’s there and worth experiencing for yourself.

REASONS TO GO: One of the best-looking non-Pixar animated features yet. Awesome dragon flight sequences will take your breath away. Seriously funny in places.

REASONS TO STAY: The plot is somewhat formulaic as far as family films go.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some cartoon violence but nothing you don’t see on the Cartoon Network day after day. Perfectly fine for all audiences.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: A Night Fury dragon can be seen occluding the stars during the DreamWorks opening banner if you look carefully.

HOME OR THEATER: The flying sequences alone are worth seeing in a theater.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: The Go-Getter

New Releases for the Week of March 26, 2010

Hiccup finds surfing the net is a whole 'nother ballgame when you're a Viking.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

(DreamWorks) Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kirsten Wiig. Directed by Chris Sanders and Dean deBlois

Hiccup is a Viking…or rather, he lives in a Viking village and aspires to Viking-ness. However, these Vikings are all about killing the dragons that plague their village and steal their livestock. It has been a war without winner for generations until Hiccup actually meets a dragon and finds that they aren’t the monsters he was raised to believe they were. With the two sides locked in a death match, Hiccup has to find a way to get both sides to learn to see the world differently than they have been bred to in order to avoid the extermination of one or both of them.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D, 3D IMAX

Rating: PG (for sequences of intense action and some scary images, and brief mild language)

Chloe

(Sony Classics) Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Max Theriot. A married woman, suspecting her husband is cheating on her, hires a prostitute to test the loyalty of her man. But when the prostitute is untruthful about the nature of his fidelity, the family is embroiled in a situation that puts them all at risk. Acclaimed Canadian director Atom Egoyan has remade this from the French thriller Nathalie.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue, nudity and language)

Greenberg

(Focus) Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh. Greenberg is a forty-ish L.A. resident who finds himself adrift at a crossroads in his life. Single, unemployed and house-sitting for his more successful brother, he has nothing to show for his existence on this Earth. Trying to reconnect with old friends in an effort to find the qualities he valued in himself that are lost, he finds instead something unexpected. From director Noah Baumbach of The Squid and The Whale fame.

See the trailer, clips and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for some strong sexuality, drug use, and language)

Hot Tub Time Machine

(MGM) John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Chevy Chase. A group of four guys who have been friends for 25 years get together at a ski lodge to drink and muse about how dissatisfied they are with how their lives turned out. The four of them get into the hot tub and pass out there; when they wake up, its 1986 and they have the opportunity of a lifetime – to change their lives for the better. Trouble is, they can also change them for the much worse.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for strong crude and sexual content, nudity, drug use and pervasive language)

New Releases for the Week of March 12, 2010

Matt Damon finds out from his agent that he lost the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

THE GREEN ZONE

 

(Universal) Matt Damon, Brendan Gleeson, Greg Kinnear, Amy Ryan, Jason Isaacs, Khalid Abdalla, Said Faraj. Directed by Paul Greengrass

It was the job of Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction during the early days of the occupation of Baghdad. It was also becoming increasingly frustrating and suspicious to him that he was coming up empty on every single occasion. He and his men are being sent to a variety of sites based on the intelligence gathered from a single source, the veracity of which Miller is coming to doubt. Needing answers as to why good men are dying for what appears to be no discernable gain, he stumbles upon a massive conspiracy and cover-up that could change the game for an entire nation.

See the trailer and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for violence and language)

Our Family Wedding

(Fox Searchlight) Forrest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, Regina King. Two bright young people meet in college, fall in love, graduate and plan to get married. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Not when the two are from two different ethnic groups with egocentric, uber-competitive fathers who want to turn the wedding into personal statements. The old adage is that when you marry someone, you marry their family and this comedy plays into that. Can true love conquer all? Seeing as this was made in Hollywood, I strongly suspect the answer is yes.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG-13 (for some sexual content and brief strong language)

Remember Me

(Summit) Robert Pattinson, Pierce Brosnan, Emilie de Ravin, Chris Cooper. A rebellious young New Yorker, estranged from his wealthy father finds himself falling in love unexpectedly with a young woman who has daddy issues of her own. Through their love they find healing where they least expected to find it. Charter members of Team Edward should flock to this one.

See the trailer, featurettes and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG-13 (for violence, sexual content, language and smoking)

She’s Out of My League

(DreamWorks) Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, TJ Miller, Nate Torrence. A mild mannered airport security agent with fair to middling looks finds himself in a relationship with a successful and incredibly beautiful woman who has fallen hard for him. He has to figure out a way to make things work with an alpha male ex-boyfriend out to reclaim her and when everyone, including himself, believes she’s way above his pay grade.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for language and sexual content)                                                    

The Yellow Handkerchief

(Goldwyn) William Hurt, Kristen Stewart, Maria Bello, Eddie Redmayne. A young girl impulsively accepts a ride from a young man and then the two of them pick up an older man who’s hitchhiking. All of them have something in their past that they are or have been running away from. As they take a road trip in post-Katrina Louisiana they find that the path to true freedom often comes at a heavy price.

See the trailer, featurettes and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, some violence, language and thematic elements)