How
to Train Your Dragon
This Dreamworks animation is a lovely tale
for low-middle aged primary kids. In
the town of Berk, its Viking occupants live in terror of dragons, who attack
and kill them on a regular basis, so not surprisingly all of the town’s
knowledge and defences go to fighting and killing them. In the midst of all of this is the chief Stoick
and his son Hiccup, and while Stoick is the supreme example of all a Viking
should be, Hiccup is weak and accident prone, constantly trying to create
devices to bring down dragons. In a raid
he believes he has brought down a Night Fury dragon (the very worst) and goes
to find it. Hiccup is unable to bring
himself to kill the dragon and instead befriends it, calling it Toothless. As he
gets to know Toothless, he realises all his village knows about dragons is
wrong – they are kind and gentle and in fact Hiccup can fly Toothless. The main clash comes between Hiccup and his
father as his father eventually realises Toothless can lead them all to the
dragon nest, so they can be done with dragons once for all. It’s a lovely story, with fun characters and
excellent animation. Some scenes may
frighten younger viewers, but there is often a comedy element thrown in to
lighten the mood.
How to
Train Your Dragon 2 is the next obvious choice
after this one. Without giving away the
story too much, Berk has now completely changed and dragons are part of its
life. Yet, this is threatened by dragon
hunters and there is more violent action with a very evil Drago who controls
all the bad dragons, and two very large dragons fighting it out at the end. At the same time, there is a reunion in Hiccup’s
family that is quite tender and lovely.
Both movies have strong messages of family,
putting others first and treating animals well.
I preferred the first one, although I know people who love #2. Both good kids’ movies and worth seeing.
Night
at the Museum
We were late to this franchise as the
shorts always looked quite scary.
However, having being assured by others it was good we gave it a
try. And they were right – it was
perfect for ours aged 9-13. Ben Stiller
leads an excellent cast here as Larry, the new night guard at New York’s
American Museum of Natural History.
Unbeknownst to him, he has his work cut out for him as all the exhibits
come to life at night, from a T-rex skeleton and capuchin monkey, to Roosevelt
(Robin Williams) and wild west coyboy (Owen Wilson). Not surprisingly, they all require a fair
amount of effort as the exhibits have a tendency to fight each other and get
into various scrapes. The interaction
between the exhibits is where much of the humour comes in, with miniature Roman
figurines and cowboys constantly fighting each other, and the T-rex acting like
a playful puppy.
It’s fun and a bit silly. A good choice for a family movie night.
Then we turned to the sequel, Night at the Museum: Battle of the
Smithsonian. This one was similar
fun. Almost all the same cast returned,
and this time the exhibits are being shipped to the Smithsonian in Washington
DC as the Natural History Museum closes down.
Yet, what happens when the entire Smithsonian comes to life? Major problems. On one side you have an egotistical Egyptian
pharaoh (Hank Azariah) joining forces with Napoleon, Ivan the Terrible and Al
Capone to rule the world, with the Natural History museum exhibits, Larry and
now Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) trying to stop them.
As I reflected on these movies, I was
impressed with how much they stayed family friendly & pretty clean – no bad
language, few sexual innuendos, very mild violence. Even more that that was the general idea that
if you stick at something, you can work it out; that you have to help others; and that you need to work through disagreements. So, they were better than I expected, and we
all enjoyed the silliness and fun.
There is even a third – Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb set
in London. We’ll add that to the ‘to
see’ movies now too!
Paper
Planes
We all enjoyed this recent Australian film.
Dylan Webber (age 12) lives in rural WA, with his dad, who is depressed and
struggling with life (it becomes clear that something has happened to his
wife). Dylan has a natural talent for
flying paper planes and after a school contest which he clearly wins, enters
the state championships. This leads to
the national championships in Sydney where he befriends the Japanese record
holder Kimi. Their main rival Jason is
intent only on winning. All three end up
in Japan for the world championship.
In some ways the story is pretty
predictable. Friendship blossoms between
Dylan and Kimi. Jason starts off as a
bully, but finds it doesn’t pay.
Dylan’s dad finally rises to the challenge and supports his son. The paper planes are fun to watch, and while
clearly computer generated at points, are great to imagine really working that
way and could inspire hours of paper planes making in your own home.
Rated G, it's suitable for everyone: no
innuendo, no bad language and no violence, with a great story about realistic people.
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