Since when is Robin Hood – that brave thief that steals from the rich and gives to the poor – an epic war hero who carves a bloody swath through a sea of Frenchmen?

It’s hard not to know the legend of Robin Hood and his Merry Men who ridicule the corrupt King John and his servant, the Sheriff of Nottingham, but I wasn’t aware that he was also a war hero of Lord of the Rings proportions. Sure, it’s a fresh take on the series, and as far as I know it follows a more historic and less fairy tale-ish route, but even if this is just a prelude to the legends of the Hooded Man, it doesn’t add up with what is usually associated with the rest of the story.

Let’s be honest here, the opening scene is one of the most ridiculous, unneeded, and downright strange scenes I’ve ever seen. A group of children or little people run through the woods and raid the barn of Maid Marion (Kate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) herself. She grabs a bow, noches an arrow, lights the tip on fire, then fires right at the feet of one of the things. As the light illuminates the figure, we see the fearsome vandal is an Ewok. I didn’t know they traveled outside of Endor! Okay, bad Star Wars jokes aside, the boy is carrying a sharp stick, wearing a cloth mask that looks like the offspring of the Jeepers Creepers monster and Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and gurgling like he’s got phlegm in his throat. Why? Just, why? I would really prefer the cute, cuddly, bear-like Ewoks than some crazed boys, and it would probably make just as much sense.

Anyway, after that we get to the real storyline: a soldier by the name of Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe, State of Play) is fighting alongside King Richard as he pillages his way through France back home from his Crusades. After the first defenses of the castle are broken, the soldiers celebrate that night. Robin gets into a fight with Little John, before they become best friends, and accidentally knock over the King. When the King asks Robin if his Crusades made God happy, Robin tells the truth and says no, landing him and his friends in the stockades. However, the King is slain by a cook’s arrow, which is rather ironic, and so one of Robin’s compatriots frees him and his band of loyal men.

As Robin and company escape, we learn of a double-crosser by the name of Godfrey (Mark Strong, Kick A**) who is friends with Prince John of England (Oscar Isaac, Body of Lies) and King Phillip of France. Godfrey is assigned by the King of France to take out the King of England, and create a weak nation to invade. However, when Godfrey’s band of assassins ambush the King’s loyal knights sent to deliver the crown to Prince John, they do not find the King. It’s just a wonderful coincidence when Robin’s men are also traveling through the same forest, so after a short battle in which Robin scars Godfrey, Robin decides to loot the knights, take their armor, and use it as their passage back to England. But one of the knights, Sir Robert Loxley, makes Robin swear to return his father’s sword to Nottingham as his final wish. Robin is iffy about fulfilling this request, but when he sees an encryption on the sword that reads, “Rise and Rise again, until Lambs become Lions,” it jogs his memory. Robin decides to find out exactly what the encryption means.

We cut to a couple of scenes here and there describing Nottingham, and life in the small English town. Maid Marion is not the damsel in distress usually associated with her character, but a fiery noble woman who has been reduced to a state of poverty. Nottingham has been taxed to death, and is losing half of its grain to the Church of York. Marion most politely tells the priest that he’s a twit, and storms off. In another scene we see her helping to push a plow, and then being harassed by the honorable Sheriff of Nottingham. As I watched this, I began to suspect that Kate Blanchett only took the role if she was going to be just as heroic and honorable as Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood was.

After Robin returns to England and hands the crown over to new King John, under the guise of Sir Robert Loxley, he heads north to Nottingham. At the same time, King John decides that it’s time to tax more, and appoints Godfrey to start taxing the people by any means necessary. So, Godfrey takes a thousand French soldiers and begins to plunge the country into a civil war. Robin returns the sword to Robert Loxley’s father, the blind, old, Sir Walter Loxley, and is forced to stay as his son. Now that’s a little far fetched. Loxley’s son dies, so his first action is to make Robin fill Robert’s shoes? And fill them completely, making him his heir, and making Marion his wife? It’s hard to take seriously.

Robin dons the hood, steals the grain back from the Church to help the poor, and slowly wins the favor of Marion and Loxley senior. Robin, an orphan since age six, finally learns that he was born in Nottingham, that the encryption was written by his father, that his father was a visionary who came up with a set of ideas similar to the Magna Carta, and that he was executed for not giving up the names.

While Robin’s having flashbacks, Godfrey’s killing in the name of King John, Phillip is bringing an army to England, and the Barons are marching against the King. They all meet as a last chance to unify against the new threat, and after a heartwarming speech from Robin, King John agrees to write a document that ensures that the Barons would be given various freedoms they did not have under tyranny. However, Godfrey finally reaches Nottingham and kills Loxley senior, almost destroying the entire village in the process.

The rest of the movie is easy to guess, but I won’t ruin it. We know Robin becomes an outlaw and lives in the woods, but what’s odd is that he joins the Ewoks. Sure they’re both outcasts, but it’s just odd how the orphan boys show up time and time again in the background, and are never ever explained. Also, our main evildoer Godfrey does little more than look intimidating, slaughter defenseless peasants, and run away. In every battle until the last battle he flees whenever Robin arrives. That’s not exactly evil villain material there. And call me nitpicky, but I thought Robin Hood was supposed to be lighthearted and funny, not somber and dark. Russell Crowe would not have been my first choice for Mr. Hood. Last, but not least, the Sheriff of Nottingham, one of Robin’s fiercest foes, has barely any role at all. He appears three or four times, tries to be scary, or cowers from the French, and does nothing else.

The acting aside from Crowe was pretty good, but the camera angles were what blew me away. There are two scenes where Robin fires an arrow, and it’s done in slow motion with an extreme close up on the bow and arrow. It’s an impressive scene, and the sets look pretty authentic. However, the whole thing is just mediocre. Not good, not bad, but worth seeing.

Courtesy of hubblesite.com

4…3…2…1, we have liftoff!

Galaxies rush past you at a ridiculous speed; clusters of stars are reduced to miniscule dots. Hubble in the IMAX format at the Denver Museum of nature and science was very captivating. Thanks to the powerful sound system involved in IMAX films, I was able to feel the launch of the shuttles as they rocketed toward space. The view of stars whizzing by and moving towards a single universe is incredible, especially since the screen fills a viewer’s field of vision. Thanks to the technology in the Hubble space telescope, scientists can now get a close look at distant planets, marvelously illustrated by a dive into a section of Orion’s belt which revealed a “star nursery,” several galaxies centered around a sun so large that its waves produce winds that shape the canyon of clouds around them and the nearby galaxies have created a shield to protect themselves. Seeing and moving through brilliant clouds of stars is, frankly, awesome.

The substance of Hubble is about the missions to repair it. Like most inventions of mankind, the Hubble Space Telescope is flawed. After Hubble’s launch, the mirror was incorrectly shaped, a problem that wasn’t fixed for three years. The next mission improved its ability to focus on distant objects. The third mission upgraded the power unit, a key component on an object that relies on solar power, and added an advanced camera. The film follows the astronauts on the fourth mission to repair Hubble. This time, Hubble needs some new gyroscopes, a better circuit board, and better batteries. Each astronaut is a well-trained professional, and when they’re on the screen, they are really friendly. When one of his crew-mates who was holding the camera asked him about why he had sunglasses on his head in the shuttle, astronaut Andrew J. Feustel flipped them over his eyes and said, “Because they’re cool,” with a grin.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s soft voice is a nice addition. It isn’t any louder than it should be, compared with the excellent music score that goes with the spacewalks (a term for simply being in outer space in a suit, no walking necessary). In fact, if it wasn’t announced at the beginning of the movie in such a memorable way, members of the audience wouldn’t know it was DiCaprio. In the opening credits, the titles exploded into several fragments of light, flying away from the center of the screen in a way not unlike a common screensaver. Most of the sound in Hubble is performed by an orchestra, an inclusion I thought was great. At times, I recalled scenes from the Metroid video game series, where an interstellar bounty hunter is on various missions taking her to distant planets where the music is very dynamic, changing with each world and voyage. Reflecting upon it more, I am also reminded of the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the openness of space is exemplified through long and echoing notes and is also well narrated.

Being able to see distant and large clusters of galaxies and stars had given me a feeling of insignificance. The only life that we can recognize is on our earth, and now that we have an instrument capable of revealing so many new worlds, perhaps we aren’t the only ones who can see into space. The known universe is so massive and has so much potential to harbor life other than that with which we are familiar. The odds of the outcomes of every event that brought people to dominate the earth are so incredible. Is it too difficult to think that such odds might be tipped in the favor of other beings? There have been volumes upon volumes written on the subject, and honestly a good amount of that is science fiction, but that does drive one to wonder.

Hubble was quite an eye-opener. In a timeframe that might be better suited for a television documentary, it managed to keep my interest with a mixture of relaxing and thrilling moments. For the low price of a six dollar student admission to an IMAX movie at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, I gained a change in perspective and learned a lot about a piece of monumental technology I previously regarded as ‘a thing that takes pictures of space for textbooks.’ I highly recommend Hubble to anyone who has wondered what lies beyond an earthly gaze, and what goes on during a space repair mission.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Artwork by Rebecca Holt.

A nearly wordless documentary that chronicles the first year of four infants in the world, is how Babies can be simply defined.  It is not really a film that is supposed to have a point, as Babies just educates the audience on the lifestyles of four newborns while providing them with lots of cute baby antics sure to warm their hearts.  While it may bore some if they do not like newborns, chances are these babies and the ways they live will intrigue most who see the film.

Babies follows four infants; Bayar (Jargal) from Bayanchandmani, Mongolia; Ponijao from Opuwo, a village in Namibia, Africa; Mari from Tokyo; and Hattie from San Francisco.  All four were filmed from the moments they were born to their very first steps.  In the opening scene (which transitions to the births), the audience sees two African children, a boy and girl, playing with rocks.  However, the two soon get into typical sibling antics: the boy gently shoves the girl, and crying is the end result.  The moment these babies appear on the screen, there is a lot of “Awwws,” and “How cutes,” and I’ll admit, these words did come out of my mouth and not just during this scene.

There seems to be no constant order for the infants (there is no pattern for screen time), so I will introduce each one based on my order of favorites.  I will begin with the most entertaining baby, Bayar (from Mongolia), as he seemed to have the most personality.  A lot of the footage consisted of sibling rivalry, as Bayar had an older brother (only a few years older though) who seemed to like harassing him.  In one scene, Bayar’s brother is filmed striking him with a scarf, which eventually results in tears.  However, what made Bayar my favorite baby was his personality, as he loved animals (a lot of his filmed time was shown with animals).  His moods seemed to be diversified (he got upset sometimes, but for the most part, Bayar was happy), and for a baby, he did the most stuff.  When I saw a scene that showed Bayar atop a pickup truck, I could not help but wonder how he got up that high.

Mari (from Japan) would probably have to be my second favorite (although I did like Punijao a lot too), as she had personality as well.  In a scene that really does her justice, Mari is shown playing with various objects on the floor.  When she comes across a doughnut-shaped object, Mari begins trying to figure out what goes through the hole.  Soon getting frustrated, Mari begins to weep and kick her feet on the ground multiple times.  I liked this scene because although it may have seemed like she was crying, it also seemed as if Mari was just angry at not being able to succeed in fitting two objects together.

Although I might have like Mari more, Ponijao (from Africa) was just as interesting, if not more. Although the sanitary conditions were poor (flies everywhere, no toilet paper or showers, an oatmeal-like substance for a meal), Ponijao did not seem to mind, as watching the flies intrigued her. For an infant, Ponijao did some cute things such as dancing, but one of the best scenes in the entire film was when Ponijao balanced a cup atop her head while she walked.

I hate to say this, but I just did not think the baby from America, Hattie, was a good choice, as she did not have much personality.  Her parents were very ecological and into the whole “go green” scenario, as Hattie was even born the natural way, inside her home.  However, Hattie did not seem to have much, if any personality.  I could not help but wonder why her family was chosen to represent America’s babies, as there are many more exciting babies then her.

Yeah, I thought Babies was a cute movie, although parents may be more apt to enjoy it.  All four infants seemed to have an equal amount of screen time and it was interesting to watch them crawl, speak their first words, and take their first steps, simultaneously.  However, they never really did anything absolutely extraordinary – I have seen babies do things worthy of the camera before that were more amazing than anything shown in Babies.  Some people may be more interested in seeing Babies than others but it is a good movie, as it has an interesting concept.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Artwork by Rebecca Holt

In April 2008, The Walt Disney Company announced an independent film label, Disneynature, which releases nature documentaries in theaters.  Their first documentary, Earth, was released on Earth Day of 2009.  Mainly focusing on three species’ migration journeys over a year (the polar bear, African elephant, and humpback whale), I was a bit surprised to find out Earth was basically just re-edited footage of BBC’s nature documentary, Planet Earth.  This 2010 Earth Day’s Disneynature release was Oceans, which consisted of extraordinary footage one has to see in order to truly appreciate.

Produced in France, Oceans explores the Earth’s five oceans (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic), getting spectacular footage of the creatures that inhabit them along the way.  I’ll start out by saying Oceans has only one con: Pierce Brosnan’s (Die Another Day) bland narration.  For a film that consists of amazing underwater footage, Brosnan does not seem to be the least enthusiastic, and instead talks like he is drifting off to sleep.  Listening to his humdrum narration, I wondered if Brosnan even got see the film, or if he was just simply reading from a script, which I am strongly against, as Oceans is a film one needs to see before applying narration.

While Brosnan may have not been the best choice when selecting a narrator, the footage captured is so breathtaking, it really does make up for his lack of personality.   The film opens with a boy admiring the ocean, just staring out into the vast waters.  The boy is not present for that long, as he is just a simple way to introduce and conclude the movie’s main subject: the creatures that inhabit our oceans.

I was surprised Oceans was able to cover every underwater species in a time period of an hour and a half.  There was not much information on many of these creatures and some were not even defined.  As a group of birds were swiftly diving into the water to feed on an enormous school of fish, I kept on hoping these birds’ specific name would be mentioned, as I did not know what birds actually did this feat (they sort of resembled seagulls, but I do not think they could dive into the water that fast) because they seemed to swim as well.  Like much of the underwater footage captured though, there was no specific description, as the wildlife for the most part, was supposed to speak for itself.

While all the footage is spectacular, there are some scenes that stand out.  There is a fight scene between a hermit crab and a shrimp, and even footage of ships catching fish with their nets (which becomes really depressing, as the audience not only sees species get caught and discarded, but water pollution which is so awful, the ocean water looks brown and dirty with lots of debris), but one of the best (and cutest) scenes is of baby sea turtles hatching out of their eggs and making their way towards the ocean.  However, a flock of seagulls soon arrive, swooping down and catching the little guys.  When Brosnan says few baby sea turtles make this journey each year, I couldn’t help but feel depressed, as they no sooner are born than they become something’s meal.

Disneynature’s celebration of Earth Day 2011: releasing Oceans, is a party everybody should attend.  The footage is truly breathtaking and although Pierce Brosnan lacks in narration personality, the spectacular camera shots really make up for it.  After watching Oceans, I just waned to get some scuba gear and dive into our oceans, experiencing all the wonders they have to offer.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Artwork by Rebecca Holt

Generally speaking, sequels are plain horrible. The plots don’t always seem reasonable, the story lines are almost always shoddy, the characters sometimes act differently, or have different actors, and the original film can be ruined, just for the sake of a couple more bucks. The Karate Kid, for example, was great, but the sequels made the whole franchise a joke. The Mask has always been one of my favorite silly movies, but it’s sequel, Son of the Mask, made me physically ill! And most importantly, George Lucas completely ruined his original Star Wars trilogy with his prequels.

However, some directors make sequels as good as, or better, than their originals. Terminator 2 is widely regarded as the best Terminator movie, The Dark Knight made it;s predecessor Batman Begins look like a pushover, and The Two Towers absolutely blew audiences away. Director Jon Favreau has joined this club, and done the nigh impossible: he’s created a sequel that isn’t garbage! With all my ranting on sequels, it’s surprising that I enjoyed the movie, but it’s hard to not enjoy a film that expands on the original and keeps the same formula that worked for the first movie. Is Iron Man 2 as good as the original? Yes. Better? I don’t think so, but it is without a doubt just as amazing as the first.

We begin this movie as a Russian news channel shows Billionaire Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock Holmes) iconic press conference where he reveals himself as Iron Man. Meanwhile, in a depressing, dirty, Russian apartment we meet Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler) as he tries to ignore the TV and focus on his dying father, Anton Vanko. As Anton slips away, Ivan lets out a roar that sounds more like constipation than rage, and swears revenge on Tony Stark and Stark Industries for some vague reason. Pulling out some blueprints for Stark’s miraculous invention, the Arc Reactor, Ivan starts building his own version of the reactor.

Thanks to Tony Stark’s alter ego Iron Man, the major superpowers of the world have signed an international peace treaty, so Tony decides to continue his late father’s dream of world peace by opening the “Stark Expo”, a year long showcase of international technological advances. However, the United States Government wants a piece of the Iron Man action, and wants to put American soldiers in Iron Suits. Insisting that Stark’s technology is being replicated in the rest of the world, techno rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) tries to dethrone Stark by showing satellite images of potential suits in Iran and North Korea. Stark hacks the screens and shows that they are nowhere near functional, and that Hammer himself was there, aiding the other governments. Stark exclaims, “I am Iron Man, therefore the suit and I are inseparable,” and refuses to let the government get his technology.

On a side note, that whole scene is written beautifully. Stark is stuck in front of a Senate committee of stuffed senators, and is making them look like ignorant mongrels. The dialogue is masterfully written, and I found myself laughing out loud numerous times as Stark repeatedly ridicules the pompous senators. I found Hammer annoying immediately -which I believe is the point- but I was cheering every time Stark took Hammer down a notch.

After Stark exits the courtroom we learn that the palladium core of the Arc Reactor that is keeping Stark’s heart beating, is also slowly poisoning him. If one remembers back to the first Iron Man, Tony Stark was taken captive by terrorists after an explosion that nearly killed him. Stark had to keep himself alive by building a miniature Arc Reactor that could keep his heart beating, using a core of the element palladium. Anyway, now that core is poisoning him, and all his other attempts at utilizing other elements have ended in failure. With his mortality so obvious, Stark is acting even more reckless than usual, making his girlfriend/assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, Two Lovers) CEO of Stark Industries, blowing off his friends, and trying to enjoy his last bits of life. However, when racing in Monaco, Ivan crashes the party with his own Arc Reactor and two electric whips of destruction. Stark just barely defeats Ivan and gets him thrown in a Monaco prison, but Hammer decides to break the Russian out of jail. Hammer wants Ivan to build him Iron Man suits so that he can sell them to the military.

Stark throws what he believes will be his last birthday party ever, gets a little crazy, and forces his best friend Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, Traitor) to pull on one of the Iron Man suits and subdue him. On another side note, the late, great DJ AM makes an appearance as himself, and is an entertaining guest. It’s truly sad that we’ve lost such an amazing persona. He also does a great job of coming up with a beat to “whoop my buddy,” as Stark says before attacking Rhodes. I couldn’t help but dance in my seat as Another One Bites the Dust by Queen and Robot Rock by Daft Punk played as the two robo-men beat the software out each other. However, the night ends with Stark’s mansion in ruins, Rhodes betraying Tony and flying off to deliver the suit to the military, and Pepper storming out on him.

The rest of the story regards the mysterious Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, Unthinkable), the even more mysterious S.H.I.E.L.D. organization, and the evil Russian building an army of Iron Drones while Stark works to find a cure for his poisoning. It’s a little complicated, and it’s even harder to explain without giving some good things away, but it’s not so complex as to go over the head of the viewer. The movie has some amazing special effects, especially the holographic computer screens with which Stark interacts, and the last battle scene is pretty impressive, especially for CGI. Editors Dan Lebental and Richard Pearson deserve an award, because there are no tell tale signs of CGI apart from the scenes being too impossible to be real.

As good as Iron Man 2 was, it wasn’t completely perfect. Rourke’s Russian baddie was shallow, hard to understand, and plain dirty. I mean, sure, Ivan comes from the Russian slums, but Rourke looks like he forgot to shower every day. And his lines were so simplistic that it seemed like completely different writers wrote the script for Rourke. Ivan also was talking about the years of suffering that Stark’s father had caused him and others, but aside from kicking out Anton for espionage, I didn’t really see any suffering of others. I also hated how Terrence Howard, the original actor for Rhodes, was replaced with Don Cheadle for the second movie. Now don’t get me wrong, Don Cheadle is an amazing actor, and he did great for this role, but it just seemed as if his character didn’t mesh with Stark as well as Howard’s did. The longstanding friendship was easy to see in the first movie, and was believable, but with the sequel it seemed thrown together at the last minute, and not very realistic.

Despite some mediocre casting, Iron Man 2 blasted its way onto my good movies list with some superior acting from Downey Jr., fantastic action, spectacular dialogue wherever Stark was involved, and a magnificent, fast-paced storyline that refused to do what so many other sequels do. This movie is funny without getting offensive, entertaining without going over the top, and exciting without getting tacky. Maybe Hollywood was just trying to make more money from the franchise, but at least they did it right this time. My enemy has humbled me, and I graciously accept my defeat this time. Bravo, Hollywood. Bravo.

Artwork by Rebecca Holt

Most know the Disney-owned company, Pixar, as they are the best when it comes to making computer-animated movies.  Since Pixar started this popular trend, many other companies have created computer-animated films, as well.  The biggest name next to Pixar is DreamWorks Animation (owned by Paramount) and in my opinion, some of their films are good, but nothing compared to Pixar’s.  However, DreamWorks Animation’s latest movie, How to Train Your Dragon, was almost as great as any Pixar masterpiece.

While I have enjoyed some of DreamWorks Animation’s films such as Kung Fu Panda, Bee Movie, and Madagascar, most of them do not live up to any Pixar movie.  Flushed Away and Shark Tale should have gotten flushed and eaten by sharks respectively, Monsters v Aliens was good but nothing monstrous, and by now I am just SICK of the Shriek franchise (I sure hope number four really is “The Final Chapter”).  In my opinion, Kung Fu Panda (DreamWorks’ 2008 wonder) was probably DreamWorks’ best animated film because it felt almost as wondrous as any Pixar movie.  However, that was before Po (Kung Fu Panda’s main character) came face-to-face with dragons.

How to Train Your Dragon takes place in the Viking village of Berk (which, as far as I know, is a made up location).  The film’s protagonist is a young Viking named Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel, She’s Out of My League) who does not look like a true Viking.  Then again, neither do any of the teenage children as, for the most part, they are squeaky-voiced toothpicks who are trained to become true, big and buff Vikings.  “How?”  One might ask.  Well, as Hiccup begins to tell, “The only problems in our village are the pests. You see, most places have mice or mosquitoes. We have… dragons.”  As the film begins, the audience is introduced to the dragons as fierce, fire-breathing monsters who snatch the sheep up from the ground while the Vikings seem to protect their village from them.  Especially when they breathed fire, the dragons seemed to come to life in 3-D, as the fire breath brightened up the screen and the theater as well.

Hiccup’s father Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, The Bounty Hunter), the king of the Vikings, does not seem to understand Hiccup, as he just wants his son to become a true Viking.  When it comes time to train new Viking teenagers to become dragon-fighting warriors, Hiccup, by convincing his father to do so, enrolls in the dragon-fighting class taught by Gobber the Belch (Craig Ferguson, The Late Show with Craig Ferguson).  When introduced to the different dragons the new recruits had to battle, I could not help but think they resembled Pokémon, as they each had different structure (small, fat, two heads), colors, and personality, as did the other Viking teenagers (who were voiced by Ugly Betty’s America Ferrdra, Superbad’s Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig, and Cloverfield’s T. J. Miller).

As action-packed as How to Train Your Dragon may sound by this point, do not worry, as the story begins to get really good.  During the film’s beginning, Hiccup shoots down a rare dragon called a Night Fury with a cannon he made.  After Hiccup’s dragon-fighting class the next day, he journeys into the woods, hoping to prove to his father that he is a true Viking by killing the dragon.  As he finds the Night Fury, however, Hiccup cannot harm it because he does not really want to kill any dragons, and sets the dragon free instead.  The dragon, who Hiccup dubbed “Toothless,” eventually begins to form a bond with the young Viking, which leads to Hiccup’s journeying to the woods every day to spend time with Toothless.  Being directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois who helped create the 2002 Disney animated film, Lilo & Stitch, Toothless is said to be almost identical to the Stitch character.  While I do agree the two have similar facial expressions, I’d say Toothless is a more memorable character, as his tame animal-like personality makes him my favorite dragon character ever.  While Hiccup was befriending Toothless, I did not think of him as a terrifying dragon; I thought of Toothless as more of a huge and timid, but lovable pet.

Compared to other DreamWorks Animation films, How to Train Your Dragon is probably their best yet.  I did enjoy the 3-D effects because not only did it have the usual objects coming at the audience (such as dragon fire breath, Viking weapons, and splashes of water), but it had some of the best depth I have ever seen in a movie, animated or not.  The 3-D sequences where Hiccup and Toothless took flight were a hit among many critics; some of them even stated they were better than Avatar’s flight scenes.  As one who did not see Avatar in 3-D, I cannot compare its 3-D effects to How to Train Your Dragon’s but I do see why the flight sequences were so popular, as while watching them, I too felt like I was riding atop a dragon.

If moviegoers do not get to see How to Train Your Dragon in 3-D, that should not stop them from watching the regular version, as while the 3-D effects are great, they are not necessary; it is the story that makes the film possibly DreamWorks Animation’s best yet.  The dragons DO NOT TALK (thank god)!  Honestly, if the dragons characters would have been more human-like, it would have ruined the entire movie, as it is their expressions (especially Toothless’) that give these beasts personality.  How to Train Your Dragon not only has great dragon characters, but the story itself is original too, as it has it all: action, comedy, drama, and even a little romance.  By the end, viewers will be wishing for their own dragon like Toothless, as he is really the main character here.

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Artwork by Rebecca Holt

Generally speaking, I am not a fan of movie adaptations of books. I feel as though directors will take something potentially great, crumple it up and spit in the author’s face, laughing all the while about the fortune they will surely make.

That said, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is certainly an exception to this rule. The addition of the occasional sketch from the book (animated, no less!) kept the movie true to the book, and it was obvious that great effort was put into similar small details, such as the cowlicks in Greg’s (the main character) hair.

The movie follows wise-cracking Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon, Santa Buddies), who is just starting middle school. For every situation he’s presented with, he comes up with a grand scheme that seems as though it belongs in a Home Alone movie, and could potentially work, but always backfires. The backfired plans eventually build up and lead Greg to lose his best friend in a classic “lying is bad” scenario.

The plot also followed the book, but to a lesser extent. A few events were pulled from the second book, which was a minor offense, and thus easy to overlook. Greg and his best friend Rowley’s (Robert Capron, Bride Wars) falling-out was made considerably more dramatic, but hey, it’s Hollywood. Then, something utterly unacceptable happened: an entire character was added! Angie Steadman (Chloe Moretz, (500) Days of Summer) does not show up in any of the books (and believe me, I’ve read them all), yet she was a major character in the movie (she was the third person in the credits!). In fact, Angie was the cause of nearly all of Greg’s troubles. Greg was hesitant to talk to her at all, and denied her offer to join the newspaper, opting for wrestling instead (which, in the book, was a class, not a club). This led to everything going downhill quickly. Later, Greg tried out to be the cartoonist for the newspaper and lost to Rowley (by the way, Greg got the job in the book but quit when the principal re-wrote all of his comics), but if he had just joined the newspaper earlier, they would have chosen him to do the comics!

This is a valuable lesson, kids: join the newspaper or your life will be a living hell.

But I digress. The movie followed the plot of the book as well as any movie based on a novel can, not to mention the creation of a great script from a book with so little dialogue. The actors were more believable than one would normally expect from child actors, and really did look like fleshed-out versions of the stick-figure drawings in the book.

The movie does a very good job of standing on its own, although it certainly makes people want to read the books if they haven’t already. It works well for all ages because of the blend of sarcastic and goofy humor, and does a good job of keeping the audience enthralled. If you’re in the mood for a lighthearted comedy, this movie is for you.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Artwork by Mia Nogueira

Hollywood is all about the gimmicks.

Anything the cigar-smoking, jeweled-fingered, greedy bigwigs can do to get poor saps to spend money and watch their movies is used with full effect, just to get that last greenback. Directors and producers over the years have employed everything giant screens, stealing the IMAX away from the scientists and the documentaries, using HD cameras, split screens, and multiple endings to get some dough. But they’ve also used cheaper tricks like “Sensurround” (giant speakers that literally made the theater rumble) and, I wish I were kidding here, Smell-o-Vision. Now, add 3-D technology to the mix, because it’s Hollywood’s favorite new movie gimmick.

Everything from Pixar animations and horror movies to the Jonas Brothers has been turned into a 3-D spectacle, and it’s becoming more and more ridiculous. Sure, it was funny and cute the first time I saw some pots and pans flying into my face, but the last thing I need inches from my mug is one of the Jonas Brothers’ guitar. Avatar was the gem that really used 3-D to its advantage, but now movies are just relying on 3-D alone. Clash of the Titans, a recent box-office release, has been a flop, mostly because the storyline is so overused that there’s no real reason to even glance at the new version without seeing it in 3-D! I’ve been a skeptic of the 3-D fad for a long time; but once, long, long ago, I was just as fascinated as the rest of the world.

In the sweltering summer of 2001 I took a trip to Disney World with my family. One of the memories that -to this day- stands out clear as crystal in my mind is the MuppetVision 3-D at Disney’s Hollywood studios. As a young boy of nine, I was captivated by the outrageous shenanigans of Jim Henson’s Muppets, cavorting around on screen and coming out to touch my face. It was absolutely mind blowing for my childhood consciousness. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the 3-D attractions at Disney World, it was but two years afterwards when my love for the third dimension was violently shattered.

Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over was the demon that took my childish fascination and innocence, slammed it inside a blender of cheap imitations, and hit puree. Not only was the Spy Kids series ridiculous, but it had gone on three-movies-worth too long. I saw some of this movie at a church movie night, complete with 3-D glasses. I didn’t expect much from the flop of a movie, but I was also disgusted at how cheesy the 3-D animation was. How the technology could go from amazing, life-like, exciting, and hilarious 3-D Muppets to this garbage was beyond me. Later, I realized that it had everything to do with the 3-D technology; how it had progressed from the red and blue glasses to the polarized lenses nowadays and how expensive it was to film a movie in 3-D. If you want to know exactly how 3-D technology has improved over the years, check out Popping Out From Theaters and Into Homes, by Rachel Wilson. Yet, this shoddy performance was enough to kill the wonder for me.

The 2004 release of The Polar Express in IMAX 3-D was enough to wrestle my grudging respect of the third dimension back, but as I grew older, I began to get confused and distracted when objects started flying off the screen at the audience. Then I began to think about why these objects needed to pop out at the screen, and there were very few reasons I could come up with.
3-D effects can be narrowed down into two classes: the good and the gimmicky. Imagine if you will, a dark corridor in an apartment building, rain pounding on the flimsy windows, lit only by a few flickering lamps and the occasional flash of lightning. A man cowers in the corner, pleading for his life. The villain raises his weapon. A flash of lightning silhouettes the gun, its every detail pointed in the faces of the audience. As the building goes dark, a blinding flash of light and a loud bang are all that the audience can see or hear. That is good 3-D, used sparingly and dramatically to emphasize a certain object or event. I would be flat-out amazed if I saw a scene like that where the villain’s weapon was pointed in my own face, so close I could touch it. Avatar’s environments were also an example of good 3-D, so lifelike, wondrous, and yet so real that one feels one could just reach out and touch them.

Gimmicky 3-D is pretty much everything that it sounds like: cheesy tricks and fancy effects that really have nothing else to do with the rest of the movie. This is when the producers and director decided to try to get a lot of people to see the movie by making everything from the snow outside to the character’s nose fly off screen and poke the viewer in the eyeball. It’s like when a bad writer drafts a horrible script, and the directors throw a thesaurus at him, hoping that using swanky language is enough to fix a broken script. Instead of throwing a thesaurus at the writer, however, producers now throw 3-D at the editors, just to get people to see it. When movies are based solely around the fancy 3-D, viewers forget about other vital information, like the plot!

Alice in Wonderland, one of the recent additions to this fad, is hard enough to watch in regular 2-D, with Tim Burton’s insane color scheme questioning if it was really Tylenol you took before watching, but in 3-D, epileptic-acid-trips are the norm. I had a hard time watching some of the 3-D in Disney’s recent rendition of A Christmas Carol, mostly because it seemed like the effects were thrown together at the last minute, and the editors created a whole chase scene where Scrooge was shrunk to the size of a mouse and was chased around by the Ghost of Christmas Future ONLY to show off the 3-D!

The list of 3-D fad keeps growing, and Hollywood is adding new movies to the jumble by the month. The most ridiculous addition I’ve seen recently? Step Up 3-D. Yeah, that’s right, the Step Up dance series. Why would anyone want dancing in their faces? I’d cringe every time someone’s foot flew in front of my nose! It’s absolutely ludicrous how anybody could think this movie is worth watching! It is the very definition of gimmicky 3-D! I’d be willing to bet an insane amount of money that the movie was written, created, and directed just because some Hollywood genius thought some shmuck would watch dancing in 3-D. I, for one, have had enough of the charade, and will be all too glad when the 3-D fad joins the list of retired, gimmicky failures, right next to good ol’ Smell-o-Vision.

Does the name Joan Jett sound familiar?  How about Cherie Curie or The Runaways?  Still have no clue of whom I am talking about?  Well, by seeing the new film, The Runaways, one will learn a little music history on a briefly famous rock band that only stayed together for a short period of four years.

Taking place in 1975 when “Rock was a man’s world,” The Runaways is a music biopic (a feature film about a famous person) about an all-female rock band, The Runaways.  The young and talented actresses, Kristen Stewart (the Twilight series), and Dakota Fanning (Push), portray Joan Jett and Cherie Curie who are not only the main focus of the band, but the film as well.  Joan Jett (Stewart) is a punk rocker: dressed in leather, jet black hair, and electric guitar in hand.  While attending a concert at a bar, Jett notices famous record producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road) standing outside.  Excited to meet one of her idols, Jett acquaints herself to Fowley, telling him how she has an ambition to play in a rock band.  Fowley sees potential in Jett and introduces her to an up-and-coming drummer, Sandy West (Stella Maeve, Brooklyn’s Finest), telling them to give him a call when they have a few songs ready.  Once I saw Kristen Stewart appear on screen as Joan Jett, I immediately knew she had the look down, as no other young actress could portray Jett the way Stewart did.  In a scene towards the opening, Jett is being taught how to play guitar. However, Jett is learning how to play mellow beginner tunes, not the heavy and loud punk rock she wants to learn.  Rebellious, Jett plugs in her electric guitar and turns the amps up all the way, playing the music for which she becomes known.

Once Jett and West have done some rehearsals together, they give Fowley a call.  Gaining two more members: Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton, Rob Zombie’s Halloween re-makes) the band’s lead guitarist, and Robin (Alia Shawkat, Whip It) a fictional bassist who represents Jackie Fox (she refused to give the rights for her to be portrayed), Fowley sees this band as being almost complete; they just need one more member: someone young and beautiful, willing to be the seductive girl.  While searching at a bar, Fowley and the girls are introduced to 15-year-old Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning), the perfect fourth girl for the band.  Like Stewart, Fanning too was the perfect choice for this famous icon.  With makeup, both Stewart and Fanning were able to look older and almost identical to the actual musicians.  In Fanning’s first major scene, it was a bit comical, as she was performing at her school’s talent show, lip-synching to David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel, complete with a costume.

The Runaways’ first rehearsals take place in Fowley’s trailer.  Once I saw where The Runaways’ rehearsal “studio” was, I wondered why a supposedly famous record producer would choose his trailer?  Was this record producer not famous at all, an impostor, perhaps?  I guess Fowley wanted to keep it secret that he was working with an all-girl rock band.  Wanting the ambiance to feel authentic, Fowley finds three neighborhood boys to throw outside trash at the band while they perform.  It is during these rehearsal scenes that I find out Fowley’s personality is harsh and often vulgar.  Although he claims the girls will become the next Beatles, Fowley treats them like trash, cursing and spewing vulgarities at them and, in a way, exploiting them as more than just a rock band.  However, as nasty as his personality may have seemed, Fowley may have been just showing the girls what it would be like when they actually got a gig somewhere, as back in these times, some did not want females playing rock music.  If they did, the audience would be chaotic at first.

The first major song performed by The Runaways was my favorite.  Trying to brainstorm something original, Fowley comes up with a phrase that relates to Cherie: “Cherry Bomb.”  When The Runaways first rehearsed, the Cherry Bomb song was nothing special, as the early rehearsals are nothing compared to the final result.  Soon, though, the audience did get a version that was a major highlight of the movie alone, as it sounded phenomenal – almost as great as the actual song.

While a lot of The Runaways is about the band’s short history, it does focus on the life of Cherie Curry as well.  Her actress mother leaves Cherie and her calm, quiet twin sister, Marie (newcomer Riley Keough) to venture off with a new husband, and Cherie’s father, it seems, is an alcoholic.  It was great to have a background story on Cherie, but I wish director Florida Sigismondi (music video director) had included Joan Jett’s story as well, as the film was only an hour and 45 minutes long.

While The Runaways may have a lot of clichés that one would find in any rock biopic (the most obvious one is Cherie’s drug addiction), it is a film that should not be missed, especially if one likes films “based on a true story.”  Both Stewart and Fanning give Oscar-worthy performances that consist of not only acting, but singing as well.

Seeing Kristen Stewart as Bella in the Twilight series does not really show her talent, as it is just a film made to entertain.  However, Stewart was the perfect choice for Joan Jett, and Dakota Fanning, who has been acting since she was a little girl (War of the Worlds, Charlotte’s Web, etc.), was the best choice for Cherie Currie as well.  While The Runaways does contain a lot of the elements that gave it its “R” rating, it is a biopic that informed many about a famous all-girl punk rock band.  It may have a short running time when compared to other similar biopics (the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, was a little over two hours long), but in reality, The Runaways were only together for a short period of time, four years to be exact.  Regardless, I highly recommend running – not walking, to The Runaways.

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

One of the most well-know directors in Hollywood is Martin Scorsese.  Although he has done many popular films such as Gangs of New York (2002) and Goodfellas (1990), it was not until 2007 when he won his first Oscar for directing the crime drama, The Departed (which also won Best Picture that year). Scrorsese’s latest thriller, Shutter Island, stars Leonardo DiCaprio (who appears to be in most Scorsese movies) who gives the usual phenomenal performance as a U.S. Marshal sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient in a hospital for the criminally insane located on the remote Shutter Island.

Set back in 1954, Shutter Island begins on a day when the weather is foggy.  U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road) and his partner Chuck Aula (Mark Ruffalo, The Brothers Bloom) are on a small boat, sailing the ocean to reach the Ashecliff Hospital for the criminally insane, located on the remote Shutter Island.  While the boat does not seem to be sailing at a fast pace, the first shot of Teddy is of him vomiting at a toilet, as he claims to get seasick easily.  While I feel the film’s opening did not have to consist of a seasick Leonardo DiCaprio, I really did enjoy the musical score, especially in the beginning.  As the boat was sailing, there were deep, ominous foghorns heard in the background.  These horns were a part of a great score written by John Adams (On the Transmigration of Souls), which seemed to stay in tune with the film, as listening to the score alone will give one the sense of doom and evil.

After arriving on Shutter Island, Teddy and Chuck are introduced to the police force that seems to be hard at work searching the entire island for a missing patient.  The police warden (Ted Levine, Monk) makes them both hand in their firearms before escorting them to the main building where the head of the facility, Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley, Lucky Number Slevin), tells them what happened: A patient (although they are prisoners, Cawley insists they be referred to as “patients,”) named Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer, Lars and the Real Girl) mysteriously vanished from a locked room.   While both DiCaprio and Ruffalo gave amazing performances, Ben Kingsley was just as phenomenal.  In such an unsettling and bad situation, Cawley acts very calm, especially when he says things like, “It’s as if she evaporated, straight through the walls.”

As Teddy begins to do his own investigating because he believes they are not being told everything, he and Chuck begin searching the buildings and interviewing the patients.  While beginning his investigation, Teddy’s deceased wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy), comes to him in dreams to inform Teddy that Rachel is still on the island, as is Andrew Laeddis, the man responsible for starting the house fire that killed her.  I thought Teddy’s dream sequences were very well crafted, as they seemed quite surreal.  In one, Teddy is remembering the house fire, and while he is holding his wife, she begins to transform into ashes.  As one who likes films with a surreal feel to them, I really enjoyed these abstract scenes, as they were very unique, especially for a Martin Scorsese film (I do not think Scorsese has ever done scenes like this before).

After a destructive hurricane hits the island, Teddy and Chuck gain access inside the third building where the most dangerous patients are kept.  Once they were inside, I too felt a little on-edge.  The inside of the building looked like the set of the Saw horror movies, as it was old, dark, and rusty and it seemed more like a torture chamber than a prison, but I guess if one was a vile psychopath, this building’s ambiance would suit their needs just fine.  Teddy and Chuck meet the police warden again and are tasked with catching the patients who are loose (the hurricane knocked out the power lines): Chuck and the warden going one way and Teddy going the other.

As Teddy is wandering down the cell halls alone, he meets George Nonce (Jackie Earle Haley, Watchmen) who tells him Shutter Island is performing human experiments on the patients.  Jackie Earle Haley, known for his disturbing and rather creepy performances in films such as Little Children and as Freddy Krueger in the new Nightmare on Elm Street movie (April 30, 2010), gives another unsettling performance as a patient who, although seeming a bit friendly to DiCaprio, his horrifying appearance would make one think otherwise.

Both Scorsese and DiCaprio create another memorable masterpiece with Shutter Island.  While I was expecting the story to revolve around ghosts and the paranormal, I was a bit disappointed when there was none.  However, Shutter Island has a great and original story [which is based on Dennis Lehane’s (Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River) best-selling novel] with phenomenal acting (especially by Leonardo DiCaprio), surreal dream sequences, and a twist that, while many may see it coming, it continues with even more twists that may make them shutter.

Rating: ★★★★☆