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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THE WATCH

20th Century Fox

Rated R

Running time: 102 Minutes



Click below to watch The Watch trailer.




In 20th Century Fox's The Watch, Ben Stiller forms a neighborhood watch - and soon discovers that their neighborhood is being invaded by aliens.

When his newly American citizen security guard Joe Nunez is killed at his store, Costco manager Ben Stiller makes an announcement at the local high school football game that he intends to find the killer and starts a neighborhood watch composed of Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Richard Ayoade to see if they can search for the killer. As they bumble through being a neighborhood watch amongst the quirky neighbors, rowdy teenagers gone wild, and the local small-town hick police Will Forte and Mel Rodriguez as the Watch looks for the killer, the Watch soon run into aliens hidden amongst the neighbors in the neighborhood as more people are killed for their skins and that anybody could be an alien amongst them.

A combination of Ghostbusters meets ET and Aliens, with the film co written by Seth Rogen, this was a cute science fiction comedy about aliens invading a neighborhood. Although I can not recall why they wanted to invade that out of the way neighborhood, so the reason did not make an impression on me. However, I thought the movie was funny.

With lonely Stiller continually forming groups that he is in charge of, Stiller's put upon and baby-starved wife Rosemarie DeWitt wants Stiller home so they can have a child and must compete with Stiller's new group - The Neighborhood Watch. Fellow Watch member Vaughn meanwhile designs their logo and has to deal with his teen aged daughter Erin Moriarty and her horny boyfriend Nicholas Braun, of whom Vaughn did not like at all. 

The core group of Stiller, Vaughn, Hill and Ayoade made a nice group for the Watch - a group similar to The Ghostbusters - although Ayoade does not have the star power of the others. I had never heard of Ayoade before, and Ayoade was much more subtle in his characterization when compared to the others - especially with wanting sex with an Asian housewife. Hill was a typical Jonah Hill character. R Lee Ermey was great in one of his rare non-military roles as a cantankerous gun-wielding neighbor. Billy Crudup was an appropriately creepy new neighbor for Stiller. I liked that DeWitt eventually became an unofficial part of the watch.

It is too bad that this movie did not get much promotion as I thought this was a fun movie. With Stiller being a manager at Costco, a lot of the jokes and scenes take place at the Costco store as well as the jokes happening throughout the neighborhood. The couple behind me were laughing a lot at this movie. Unfortunately, due to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida shot by a neighborhood watch captain, 20th Century Fox altered their marketing for this movie. These changes in marketing, as well as the various events of the 2012 summer season and the movie's R rating, is what I believed helped kill the movie as I saw very little marketing for The Watch. I am also sure the film would have done better as a PG-13 film.

Rated R for language, sexual situations, violence. Running time: 102 Minutes

Click below to watch another trailer of The Watch.



Pancho
All people smile in the same language.
 Pancho's Movie Reviews

21 JUMP STREET

Columbia Pictures and MGM Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 109 Minutes





Click below to watch the 21 Jump Street trailer.



In Columbia Pictures and MGM Pictures 21 Jump Street, former high school adversaries and incompetent rookie cops Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are transferred to the Jump Street program - where they are to become undercover high school students.

A loose sequel based on the 1980's dramatic TV show 21 Jump Street, created by Stephen J. Cannell and Patrick Hasburgh, the movie 21 Jump Street is a comedy with Hill and Tatum partnered up as undercover brothers by their Captain, Ice Cube because of their youthful looks in order to stop a synthetic drug from spreading out from the local high school into other schools being distributed by popular student dealer Dave Franco.

As a fan of the TV show, I was rather disappointed that the movie was basically a crude high school comedy, instead of a serious action drama that I was expecting - especially when the movie is dealing with hard drugs. Although the fact that the movie did make fun of the media not coming up with anything brand new and remaking old ideas was cute. However, the film is full of stereotypes and is very politically incorrect as the film makes fun of those stereotypes. With that said, the movie is a pretty funny comedy. With the film Written, Executive Produced, and Starring Jonah Hill, it makes it seem that Hill is going backward in his career in that he is doing high school comedies again, when I would much rather see him do more dramas like his baseball movie Moneyball. Although it was fun watching Hill and Tatum become brothers in this film and having them stay at home with Hill's parents. It was also fun having Hill dressed as Peter Pan which adds to a lot of jokes. Even if Tatum was the sports jock and Hill was the nerd, their roles were accidentally reversed when they go undercover - which breaks up the traditional buddy cop roles. I wish the rest of the movie was of that caliber, instead of the running joke of being able to remember the words to the Miranda Rights. Since the TV show was an ensemble show, I would have preferred Hill and Tatum working more with the other Jump Street undercover cops, like the girls, instead of just recruiting the other high school students to help them. Perhaps there will be more of an ensemble movie in the sequel, where Hill and Tatum will probably return as college students.

Having uncredited cameos with 21 Jump Street TV series stars Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise reprising their TV roles was great to see in the movie with Depp and DeLuise portraying DEA agents and adds closure to their characters from the TV series. TV series star Dustin Nguyen was shown in TV clips in the movie, while TV series star Holly Robinson Peete was the only series regular who was actually credited in the movie. IMDB lists that TV series star Richard Grieco was also in the movie, which I did not know about and I do not know where he was in the movie as I did not notice him. Not having seen the TV show on the Fox Network in years, it was great that I was able to remember the words to the theme song - which was originally sung by Robinson Peete, with backup by Depp and DeLuise - when the song played during the end credits.

Rated R for language, violence, sexual situations, drug use.  Running time: 109 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

Moneyball

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 133 Minutes

















Click below to watch the Moneyball trailer.



In Columbia Pictures Moneyball, the major league baseball team Oakland A's general manager Brad Pitt tries to build a winning World Series team in 2002 by building a team of misfit ball players using statistics.

Based on a true story, this is not your typical baseball film in that the film is about the "Business" of baseball instead of about the players "playing a 'children's game.'" The players in the film are treated like commodities instead of athletes as Pitt uses the player's statistical skills to build a winning team the A's can afford instead of paying for expensive talent. In a world where big franchises can afford to pay millions of dollars to get players, that is an intriguing business decision when you only have hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for your players - or using baseball scouts searching for talent. The sports analysts like Bob Costas get on Pitt for using this experimental system on baseball - but totally ignore, or are at least are unaware, that Pitt is operating under a very small budget to produce a World Championship team. Pitt had also been the product of a talent search, which did not turn out well. This is one reason why he is going with this approach.

It was nice to see Jonah Hill play an adult role for once as Pitt's statistical assistant responsible for Pitt's entire team strategy. This is also one of Pitt's best roles and I would not be surprised at talks of an Oscar nomination. The writing by Aaron Sorkin definitely helped Pitt's performance. Several of the actors playing ballplayers has had baseball experience, which adds realism to their roles - especially as the team heads for the playoffs, although the film does not spend that much time in the ballpark.

I do not see why the movie is Rated PG-13. I do not recall any language and the only violence is when Pitt throws furniture around when he is angry. There are locker room scenes, but I do not recall anybody being really undressed. The rating kills an additional audience that would relate to Pitt's daughter Kerris Dorsey when Pitt is at home. The movie is over 2 hours, which makes the movie drag at the end of the film. A couple of scenes at the end of the film could have been deleted and made the movie tighter.

Rated PG-13. Running time: 133 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.