Movie Reviews

In the last two weeks, I've seen two animated movies: How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3. They were both really good! Here are my reviews!

How to Train Your Dragon
I didn't know much about this movie going into it, so I had zero expectations. The plot was simple, but entirely different; it reminded me of Shrek, actually, because the story is about how things that are perceived as scary are not actually scary at all. So kudos to DreamWorks for subverting notions of normal/not normal.

There were only two things I didn't like about this movie: the dragon at the end was just too darn big—even for a fantasy animation—and the Viking youth didn't have Scottish accents, while the adults did (Really, what was that about?).


Toy Story 3
I had low expectations for this movie, too—mostly because I was trying to not get my hopes up that Pixar could create another great sequel. But they did! It was such a funny movie! I especially liked the Ken and Barbie scenes. Michael Keaton was the voice behind Ken, and he really took the cake. The general plot was fairly predictable, but Toy Story's familiar how-are-we-going-to-escape-the-villain-and-get-back-home theme wasn't boring because there were so many humorous scenes sprinkled throughout. Pixar really knows how to make a girl cry, too—I got a little watery-eyed at the end. (There were no actual teardrops, though.) :)

The one caution I will give for this movie, though, is: Don't let your small children watch it. I think some scenes could be a little scary for 4- or 5-year-olds. Just to be safe, I'd probably wait until my kids were 7 or 8.


Thing I'm thankful for: a car that works.