Epic Movie Review

Epic is an entertaining family movie that both kids and adults can enjoy.  This animated good vs evil fantasy film hides some good lessons about balance, and interdependence.  To be honest I cannot think of anything bad about this movie.  It made for a very enjoyable family movie night.

The story is about the struggle between life and death in a forest, and about the relationships of parents and children.  The main character MK is having issues with her father due to his belief, and obsession with, the tiny people who care for a nearby forest.  She is forced to believe when she ends up getting caught up in the succession battle between life and decay in the forest, and is shrunk to the size of one of the tiny people.  MK must ensure that the next ruler of the forest is on the side of life, and at the same time repair her relationship with her father who it turns out was right all along.

This movie will appeal to anyone who likes a good fantasy, and particularly anyone looking for a good movie on family movie night. The movie is very well animated and you find yourself wanting to believe in the world presented.  The plot has plenty of action to keep even your three year old watching, but has enough deeper meaning to be interesting to everyone else.

This movie can be found at www.amazon.com on disk or as a stream for rental or purchase.

Escape from Planet Earth Movie Review

I picked this movie off of Netflix because I couldn't take any more kids programming, but wanted something my daughter could enjoy with me.  I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.  The movie is fun to watch and funny for both kids and adults.  I like that it has something for everyone, but keeps it simple enough that my three year old can follow it.

What I didn't like about the movie is that it is very predictable.  There weren't very many surprise's as far as major plot points go.  The film made up for this however with the family dynamics between the main characters that were woven around the plot.

Scorch Supernova, is the biggest hero on his world, and it seems that there isn't anything that he cant accomplish.  He is very athletic and if something is possible it is likely he can pull it off.  Unfortunately he has a tendency towards arrogance, impulsive action, and not thinking things through.  Most of the time this is mitigated by his mission controller, his brother Gary Supernova, who is very intelligent, and can think his way out of most of Scorch's jams.  One day Scorch is asked to go to the dark planet, which is earth, to answer a distress call.  Gary counsels him to turn down the mission since nobody has ever come back from there.  They argue and Scorch ends up doing the mission without Gary's help.  When he falls for the inevitable trap Gary ends up trying to save him personally.  This ends up with them both stuck on earth, and Gary being forced to work on a crazy super-weapon by a bitter US general along with some other trapped aliens.  In the end Gary is able to disable the super-weapon, save the day, and escape earth with the help of his family back home and his brother Scorch.  In the end Scorch and Gary realize that they both need each other and that their success comes from their teamwork not Gary's brains or Scorch's physical abilities.

This movie should appeal to people looking for a light Science Fiction Family movie, or people who like a good space adventure.  The animation is done in such a way that kids will enjoy the show, but the dialog is geared more towards adults without being so overly complex that kids can't follow it.  This is a science fiction comedy, but it is not what you would call hard science fiction.  It does however emphasize the power of thinking, and the hero is an engineer.

This movie can be found on disk at www.amazon.com and can be found streaming as either a rental or purchase at www.amazon.com or for free with subscription at www.netflix.com.

How to train your dragon Movie Review

This movie is the story of a boy who made friends with a dragon and a dragon who came to trust a boy.  I really identified with Hiccough the main character because he is a viking that doesn't like normal viking things.  He is clumsy, weak, and clever. These are not exactly what his clan is looking for in a viking.  I really liked how Hiccough's different way of looking at things allowed him to do things nobody else from his village had ever managed, and find his place among his people in doing so.

To be honest I cant really think of anything about this movie that I didn't like.  Seriously I think its that good.  I have watched it probably 50 times with my daughter and I still enjoy it.  How many movies can you say that about?

The basic plot of this movie is that Hiccough's Island, Berk, has been at war with the dragons pretty much forever because the dragons burn down their houses and eat their livestock.  It is so deeply entrenched that the right of passage in his village is to kill a dragon.  Hiccough, being a clumsy and geeky sort of guy, comes up with an invention to help him kill a dragon.  He ends up disabling a dragon known as a Night Fury, but because he shot it with his invention and nobody saw it, nobody will believe him.  Hiccough finds the dragon in the forest but cannot bring himself to kill him and attempts to set him free.  Unfortunately the dragon has lost a part of his tail and cannot fly.  Over time Hiccough gains his trust and names him toothless due to his retractable teeth.  Being clever he fashions a prosthetic tail piece and toothless and he teach each other to work as a team so that toothless can fly once again.  Eventually things come out and Hiccough's father ends up using Toothless to navigate to the dragons Island.  Hiccough tries to warn his father that there is something on the island making the dragons raid Berk, but his father will not listen and sets off with most of the clan.  Knowing that his people will be destroyed Hiccough recruits his dragon training class, tames the captive dragons the clan holds, and flies off to save the day.

This movie should appeal to people of any age.  It is a great movie to watch with your family.  It should particularly appeal to anyone who has ever had trouble fitting in.  It is a good parable for what can be accomplished when you change the way you look at and do things.

This movie can be found at www.amazon.com on disk or as a streaming rental or purchase.

Lilo and Stitch Movie Review

Lilo and Stitch is a fun family movie that you can watch with your kids.  This animated science fiction film is really all about acceptance and chosen family.  The film does a good job of making you identify with both Lilo and Stitch, and under the comedy both of their stories are a little sad.  I really like the fact that this can be seen as either a girl and her alien or as an alien and his little girl movie because it becomes very obvious through the film that the are good for each other.

What I didn't like about this movie is the Galactic Federation.  The movie manages to portray the society as extremely rule-bound and formal, and sort of wild west at the same time.  The reasoning behind why they would want to imprison stitch are flimsy and don't make a lot of sense for a cosmopolitan society.

Basically the story follows the life and meeting of Lilo and Stitch.  Lilo is a little girl who lives with her sister because their parents died.  she has trouble fitting in with the other kids in her town, and acts out violently at times.  Stitch is a genetic experiment made by a mad scientist in the galactic federation.  He is basically made to be a force of chaos and destruction.  He is very hard to hurt, and highly intelligent.  When Stitch's creator is put on trial he is used as evidence against him, and stitch's behavior at trial end up getting him banished to a remote asteroid.  Rightly seeking to avoid this horrible fate stitch escapes confinement, steals a ship, and crash lands in Hawaii.  Looking like a dog he is picked up and taken to the animal shelter where Lilo adopts him.  Lilo is very understanding of his violent tendencies and tries, largely successfully, to help him overcome them.  In the course of doing this Lilo comes to terms with her own situation, and deals with her own issues as well.  Eventually Stitch is pursued, and ends up dragging Lilo into his problems.  In the end they save each other.  Stitch saves Lilo from being abducted by the Galactic Federation.  Lilo saves Stitch by claiming him as a member of her family, and not letting the Galactic Federation take him away.

This movie makes a great family movie because it shows that anyone can be good, and that everyone has a place where they belong.  It says that even someone who was made to be bad can overcome that with the right family, and an understanding environment.

This movie can be found at www.amazon.com on disk or as a streaming rental or purchase.  It is also available on Netflix if you have a subscription.

Titan AE Movie Review

Despite the movie starting with the earth being destroyed this movie is a pretty upbeat science fiction story, about a people overcoming the loss of their home and at the same time a boy coming to terms with the loss of his father.  What could be a fairly depressing tale ends up being goofy but inspirational.  The film is animated so the there are no special effects to degrade, and the animation is pretty good.

The things that I don't like about this movie are that the destruction of earth does not hit very hard and it is never adequately explained why the antagonists the Drej are after us.  The best I could get is that the technology we were developing was a long term threat to them, but it was never explained why.  Despite these shortcomings I did really enjoy the movie as a basic hero's journey tale in space.

The story follows the main Character Cale who was a young child when he escaped the destruction of earth in the care of his fathers friends.  His father piloted a spacecraft that is supposed to be the hope of humanity, but was never seen again.  Years later Cale is working in a scrapyard when another of his fathers friends, Captain Korso shows up wanting Cale's help to find his fathers ship.  It seems his father left a map in a ring with  his son detailing where he planned to go.  Eventually Kale accepts his destiny and takes up the search.  Through the journey he sheds his bitterness and reconnects to humanity.  Their quest has many twists and turns and Cale becomes good friends with Korso's crew.  At one point Korso is revealed to be  a traitor, and it is left to Cale and his new friend Akima to find the ship before Korso and the Drej can destroy it.

This movie will appeal to anyone who likes a good space adventure, but if you are looking for a hard science fiction film this is not for you.  There is definitely the type of science fiction with more fiction than science.  That being said this is a movie that you could potentially watch with the whole family if your children are not sensitive to mild personal violence, and the fact that the movie has the destruction of earth in the first scene.

This movie can be found at www.amazon.com on disk or streaming for rental or purchase.