Showing posts with label Toy Story 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toy Story 3. Show all posts

2010-12-28

Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon

Two days ago, I watched How To Train Your Dragon with my family. We had rented it from a RedBox for a gathering at our house, but no one at the gathering watched it, so we decided to watch it before returning it that night.
It's a great movie, and I would even say it was better than Toy Story 3 (which I reviewed just over a week ago). Unlike that movie, this one didn't have any gimmicky political lines or plot. It was a fun, lighthearted movie that also had a surprisingly complex plot (for a children's movie), as there were at least 2 different subplots going on at one time (for example, the continuous switching among the main character's dragon training classes, his time spent with the dragon he caught, and his father's expeditions that aim to find the dragons' lair). There were quite a few funny lines that didn't also try overly hard to appease the adults in the audience, which I appreciated. In all, I think it's a great movie for kids and their families, though I missed the extra splashy 3D experience because I watched it at home (and no, I don't have a TV capable of producing a 3D experience).

2010-12-19

Movie Review: Toy Story 3

This evening, as I am back home, I got to watch Toy Story 3 with my family. (On a side note, the DVD seemed pretty badly scratched as there were many parts that jumped and skipped around, but it was tolerable.)
I had heard from many of my friends over the summer that this movie is an exceptionally good movie, and to be honest, while I think it's a good, clean, family-friendly movie, I don't think it's anything to rave about. I found a lot of the political themes (e.g. "we are in control of our destiny") a bit off-putting for a kids' movie (though Barbie delivering the "power of the government derives from the consent of the governed" line was priceless), though I guess it's more to please the parents who are also probably watching. Other than that, aside from a few other funny moments (like Mr. Potato Head replacing his body with a tortilla), it wasn't anything truly special. All in all, I'm not really sure what all the hype was about (other than Andy going to college, and even then, I found his actions at the end when playing with the little girl and his old toys simultaneously funny and disturbing).