HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

DreamWorks Animation

Rated PG

Running time: 102 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of How to Train Your Dragons 2.



In Dreamworks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon 2, Hiccup/Jay Baruchel and his dragon Toothless map the unexplored lands and territories, when they come across an insane dragon conqueror called Drago Bludvist/Djimon Hounsou - as well as someone from Hiccup's/Baruchel's past.

This is the second movie in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy Executive Produced, Written, and Directed by Dean DeBlois, and based on the How to Train Your Dragon book series by Cressida Cowell.

This is one of those rare movies that I think is actually better than the original movie. The story is bigger and more open than in the first movie as Hiccup/Baruchel explore the area surrounding the island of Berk from which he is from. The characters from the first movie have returned. Hiccup's/Baruchel's father Gerard Butler, as well as characters Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, and the friends have grown in the reported five years since the events of the first movie and are young adults now. Hiccup/Baruchel grows even more as the movie develops, especially when he meets Valka/Cate Blanchett. Hiccup/Baruchel's scenes when flying with Toothless were awe inspiring to watch. It helps that there was the Dreamworks Dragons TV show that aired in-between the release dates of the two movies which had showed how the dragons were being integrated into the Viking island of Berk, including running dragon games. After watching the TV show, it is not such a culture shock when watching How to Train Your Dragon 2 from the story of the original How to Train Your Dragon. The animation of How to Train Your Dragon 2 is quite involved too as the movie depicts the various new dragons and massive battle scenes, which reminded me of World War II battle scenes.

I think of all the movies that I had watched over the Fourth of July weekend, How to Train Your Dragon 2 was the best movie for me story and entertainment-wise. This movie was a lot of fun. I loved at how family motivated the movie is with Hiccup/Baruchel and how emotional the movie was for me as a result. Even Toothless seemed to become part of a family when they discover the new world of dragons. I will admit that I had cried when I watched this movie, as the movie was that powerful toward the end.

One thing that did bother me - and it should not bother me as this is an animated movie, so they were not hurt - was of how the sheep were used in this movie. I kept thinking of The American Humane Association. This is an animated movie, and how the sheep were used were funny and reminded me of the Wallace and Gromit movies - but how the sheep were used would have been disturbing in a live action movie and I had to keep reminding myself that this is an animated movie and thus not real.

The final movie in the trilogy, currently titled How to Train Your Dragon 3, is scheduled for release on June 17, 2016.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of How to Train Your Dragon 2.



Click below to watch the featurette movie trailer of How to Train Your Dragon 2.



Rated PG for violence. Running time: 102 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

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Maleficent

Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG

Running time: 97 Minutes



Click below to watch a movie trailer of Maleficent.




Walt Disney Pictures Maleficent is the story of the fairy queen Maleficent, Angelina Jolie, who curses the baby daughter of a king into a death-like sleep on her sixteenth birthday.

In this live action version of Walt Disney's 1959 animated movie Sleeping Beauty and released on Sleeping Beauty's 55th Anniversary in 2014, Maleficent is told from the point of view of the queen fairy Maleficent - who was the villain in Sleeping Beauty and is considered to be the greatest villain in Disney history. In this 2014 movie you get to know who Maleficent is. In a similar style to Walt Disney Pictures Oz the Great and Powerful, both visually and story-wise, in that Maleficent is also a tragedy such as in Oz the Great and Powerful. The movie Maleficent is a tour de force for Actress and Executive Producer Jolie as you feel for Maleficent as she goes through a very personal dark and painful time in the movie. Jolie worked closely with the costume designers and special make-up effects artist Rick Baker to maintain the scary look of the animated Sleeping Beauty. It is curious that all the actors were chosen in part for their likeness to their characters in the animated Sleeping Beauty. Fairy actresses Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, and Juno Temple were guided by the artists of Cirque du Soleil to give the proper feeling of featherweight and agility when Manville, Staunton, and Temple are the tiny fairies.

As the king, Sharlto Copley appears to show any love to his daughter Aurora/Elle Fanning. King Copley is so obsessed on his plans of destroying Maleficent/Jolie, that he has no time or interest for family. In fact, you do not know the queen/Hannah New at all. She only has a couple of lines and then you do not see her at all anymore. Queen New is basically just there in the movie as a cameo of Aurora's/Fanning's mother and you do not care about her at all.

It should be pointed out that the movie Maleficent is not exactly the same story as Sleeping Beauty. While the movie has elements of Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent does not follow the story that everyone has grown up with. Although Aurora's/Fanning's baby christening sequence is word for word from the movie Sleeping Beauty - because Jolie felt that this sequence was the core and setup of the entire movie of Maleficent, and the movie is really about what happened before this scene - the first time that I had realized that the story of Maleficent would be a different story was when a minor plot point was not revealed. I kept expecting that particular plot point would be revealed later on in the movie, but it never was.

It was great to hear the song "Once Upon a Dream" from the 1959 Sleeping Beauty film as the end credits song for Maleficent, which was sung for the movie Maleficent by Lana Del Rey, who was chosen to sing the song by Jolie.

There are so many wonderful movie trailers of this movie. It was hard for me to pick a movie trailer for this review. For this review, I choose the movie trailers that compared Maleficent with Sleeping Beauty, as people would be familiar most with Sleeping Beauty. Click here to watch the Maleficent movie trailers.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Maleficent.

 
Rated PG for violence and intense scenes. Running time: 97 Minutes.

Pancho 
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TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

Paramount Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 165 Minutes



Click below to watch the movie trailer of Transformers: Age of Extinction.


In Paramount Pictures Transformers: Age of Extinction, Mark Wahlberg finds a broken down semi-truck - which turns out to be the Transformer Autobot Optimus Prime/Peter Cullen.

In this sequel to Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the film takes place four years after the invasion of Chicago. Using new characters, struggling inventor/mechanic and single father Mark Wahlberg is trying to make money for himself and send his daughter Nicola Peltz to college with his inventions, when Wahlberg tries to restore a broken down semi-truck that he had bought with his partner T.J. Miller's money. Wahlberg soon discovers that the truck is Autobot Optimus Prime/Cullen - and that secret CIA government agents Titus Welliver and Kelsey Grammer are searching for them, along with bounty hunter Transformer Lockdown/Mark Ryan.

Directed by Michael Bay and Executive Produced by Steven Spielberg, story-wise, I think this is the best of the Transformers movies. While Optimus/Cullen feels betrayed by the humans, due to Grammer's machinations of getting rid of all Transformers after what had happened to Chicago, this movie is really about the love of father Wahlberg and his daughter Peltz. But like all of Director Michael Bay's films, the movie is twenty minutes too long as far as the action at the end is concerned. As it it, Bay says this is the longest film in the series. I just wanted to get on with the story instead of watching all of this fighting and destruction. I was feeling sleepy because there was no story to keep me interested. As usual I got confused as to which Transformer was which during the final battle scenes as they all look alike. As a result - as much as I wanted to care who was who, I did not care. I cared more for Wahlberg was firing an alien gun. It is curious in that there seemed to be more collateral damage and bystander refugees in the international China scenes than in the American scenes.

While Autobots from previous movies have been destroyed, the movie does introduce new Transformers - including Hound/John Goodman, Drift/Ken Watanabe, and Crosshairs/John DiMaggio. There was also a logical reason for the new Transformers that are introduced that transform into cars and other things, not including Stanley Tucci's man made Transformers, which Optimus/Cullen brought about which goes all the way back to the Creators. This logical reason, and that Optimus/Cullen was leading them, made the introduction of the new Transformers really special for me.

The 3-D was awesome throughout the entire movie. Usually the 3-D in movies is bad as it is just a conversion, but I noticed the 3-D throughout the entire movie - most notably when dust motes are flying around. Even in ordinary scenes, you could see the depth of the scene as Bay shot 60 percent of the movie in IMAX 3-D. The 3-D actually made me flinch a couple of times as things flew out at me.

Hasbro and Paramount Pictures have stated that here are talks of a fifth and sixth installment in the Transformers series. As of the 2014 July fourth weekend, Transformers: Age of Extinction has earned $201.3M overseas. This makes the movie the highest-grossing weekend for a film.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Transformers: Age of Extinction.



Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 165 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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