Film Review: 'How to Train Your Dragon'

I'll admit it, I'm a major skeptic when it comes to non-Pixar animated movies. I've sat through too many animated flicks that feel like 90-minute attempts to emulate Pixar's success. However, every once in awhile, we get a movie like Shrek, Surf's Up or Kung Fu Panda. These show us that other studios can indeed craft quality animated movies.

I'm happy to say that DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon is another resounding success in that category.

Dragon is the story of Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), a young Viking who lives in a village that happens to be constantly at odds with, you guessed it, dragons. The problem is, Hiccup isn't very good at being a Viking, much to the chagrin of his father, the village leader (Gerard Butler). When Hiccup manages to get lucky enough to shoot down a Night Fury, the most feared and mysterious of all dragon species, the young Viking must choose: kill the wounded dragon or befriend it (I'll give you one guess).

This is a wonderful movie. The cast is excellent, with Baruchel and Butler both providing the perfect voicework for each of their characters. Baruchel is his usual self, nerdy and insecure and Canadian-sounding. Butler sounds a lot like 300's King Leonidas, minus the dining in Hell tonight, which works perfectly. The supporting cast includes Craig Ferguson and America Ferrera, along with a bunch of Apatow regulars like Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Kristen Wiig. They all manage to provide a great deal of comedy, just like in their live action roles.

There's a surprising amount of drama present here, and it never feels cheesy or forced. There's just enough of it packed in to make the story serious enough to matter. The conflict between Hiccup's dragon-hating father and Hiccup himself is at the center of the story here, and it's well-done at every turn. The movie drags a bit in the middle, but the slow pacing there isn't a major issue. It still keeps us interested, and that's the important part.

That said, let's face it, at the end of the day, the action and comedy reign supreme, and Dragon is both hilarious and action-packed.

It wouldn't all be a complete package without the impressive animation. There's something about the hair and fur in Dragon that's massively impressive. It looks incredibly real, and that's just a superficial detail. This movie is just one more example of how studios up the technical ante each time they release a new animated film. The action is breathtaking to behold, and my stomach was turning like I was on a roller coaster.

Sadly, when discussing the technical aspects of this film, we can't escape talking about 3D. I saw Dragon in 3D, despite the fact that movie theaters across the country raised their prices by as much as 26 percent, specifically for this movie. This obviously comes in the wake of the success of Avatar and Alice in Wonderland.

Put simply, reviewers who say Dragon's 3D gives Avatar's a run for its money either A.) didn't see Avatar or B.) apparently don't remember seeing Avatar. Dragon can't touch Avatar in terms of 3D, and that's a reality that shouldn't be surprising. There are some cool moments, but not cool enough for that kind of a price hike.

It's nice to know that we don't have to count on Pixar to deliver the only quality animated fare each year. Sure, movies like How to Train Your Dragon can't touch the quality of, say, Up, but they're definitely a joy to watch, and not just in the superficial department. I feel like a crotchety 23-year-old harping on the 3D, but it honestly just doesn’t appeal to me. That fact doesn’t detract from this movie at all, though. Dragon puts forth a lot of heart to go with its huge serving of action, and it all mixes together nicely to make a very impressive animated movie.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars

And I call myself a film fan...

I just re-subscribed to Netflix last night and created a Queue largely based on Yahoo's "100 Movies to See Before You Die" list. I've listed the Queue before, and I found myself asking myself, how in the world have I not seen these movies?

North by Northwest
Blazing Saddles
The African Queen
Mad Max
Unforgiven
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Graduate
The French Connection
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Citizen Kane
Dr. Strangelove
Chinatown
Casablanca
Gone with the Wind
Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Crash the 'SpyParty'

Ever since I picked up my Xbox 360 controller and played Braid for the first time, I was a sucker for independent games. Like most industries, there's a lot of crap out there, but if you can find the gems, you'll be glad you did.

These gems include Twisted Pixel's Splosion Man, Cipher Prime's Auditorium, The Behemoth's Castle Crashers, the one-button masterpiece Canabalt, and the aforementioned Braid. These games have at least two common threads: they're cheap, and they're amazing.

I recently found another one to watch for. It's called SpyParty, and it's worth a look.

No, it's not a virtual version of those real-life party role-playing games. Developed by former Maxis (SimCity, The Sims, Spore) employee Chris Hecker, SpyParty allows one player to take control of a spy. The player chooses a character and proceeds to intermingle with computer-controlled characters at a party while attempting to complete a series of espionage-oriented objectives (bug an ambassador, signal a double agent, transfer a book from one shelf to another, steal a statue).

The catch is, another player gets to take control of a sniper, who watches the party through the limited view of a scope. The sniper must distinguish the spy from the computer--controlled characters and pick him off with a single bullet. The spy can see the sniper's laser as it moves across the room.

I haven't played the game yet, but many game journalists and bloggers have reported that it's an extremely innovative, suspenseful and fun experience.

Imagine wandering through the party, trying your best to act like like a robotic computer player. The sniper's laser moves across the room, stopping at your head. You continue intermingling, trying to act casually robotic. The laser moves away, you breathe a sigh of relief and continue trying to complete your objectives.

It sounds beautiful in its simplicity and its intended style, which is supposed to be reminiscent of 1960s-era spy films when the game is done. Keep in mind, the visuals depicted in the screenshots featured here are from an extremely early prototype build of the game. Hecker has said he intends to expand SpyParty to include more objectives and whatnot, too.

Most developers don't have the foresight to take their limitations and build on them, but Hecker apparently does. He takes the infamously robotic nature of game AI and tells players to imitate it to their advantage. I'd love the opportunity to imitate the guards in the N64 classic GoldenEye. It just sounds like too much fun, and I wouldn't miss it.

Now all we need is a release date.

I originally discovered this game in an article on Wired Magazine's official site. Check out the article by clicking here.
The first and second screenshots in this post are from the Wired article mentioned above. The third is from Chris Hecker's official development blog for SpyParty.

An Update on 'The Witness'

I haven't kept up with Jonathan Blow's progress on his new game The Witness much lately, but a quick look at the game's official site shows a great deal going on in the game's development.

For those of you who don't know, Blow developed one of my favorite games in recent memory, Braid, a charming side-scroller that combines ingenious time-based puzzles, a "painterly" art style, beautiful music and a very deep story.

A while back, Blow posted on the Braid blog a link to the Web site for his new game, titled The Witness. The site featured only a passage from the work of Lao Tse. A click on the passage revealed a simple white page with a bit of text telling the reader that The Witness would be "an exploration-puzzle game on an uninhabited island," "to be released on multiple platforms — whatever makes sense in late 2011, when the game will hopefully be finished."

The new site's first page is similar to the former one, featuring another passage, this time from the Buddhist work "The Dhammapada."

Cryptic stuff aside, the crux of the recent update is definitely the development blog for The Witness. In some of the recent posts, we learn some small but interesting tidbits about the game. For instance, Blow tells us that much of the game will take place outdoors. He also mentions in one of his posts that he wants to keep the graphics (specifically lighting) simple, a decision I applaud.

The most interesting part of the blog, however, is the concept art. This is really the first visual look we've seen of The Witness. From the art and captions, we can glean that we'll start the game in a house, which is located in a compound surrounded by a defensive force field. There's also a windmill by a lake somewhere in the game, as well as a sculptor's studio, a tower, a hedge maze, a planetarium and a dock.

Like my last post on The Witness, I can safely say again that we don't have much to go by yet. Still, this is a game worth following. Blow proved with Braid that cryptic is his chosen language, so I don't see why we should expect anything different when learning about his new game.

Sadly, it looks like we won't be able to play The Witness until late 2011. It's one of my most anticipated games in a long time, and I have no doubt Blow will deliver a fine product once the release date comes around.

Check out the official blog, and if you haven't played Braid yet, do so. It's available for the Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, PC and Mac.