SYOPSIS: in “How to Train Your Dragon,” a new live-action remake of the 2010 animated film of the same name, a young Viking boy named Hiccup goes against his village’s traditional belief that dragons are “the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself,” when he befriends a Night Fury dragon named Toothless. “Dad, I can’t kill dragons,” Hiccup admits to his father, Stoick the Vast.
CAST: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Ruth Codd, Peter Serafinowicz, Murray McArthur, Gerard Butler. Written and directed by Dean DeBlois.
REVIEW: At the movies, it seems that everything old is new again.
Even if it’s not that old.
It was just 15 years ago that the animated “How to Train Your Dragon,” based on the 2003 novel by Cressida Cowell, earned two Oscar nominations and launched a franchise that includes sequels, short films, a television series, a video game and an arena show adaptation featuring 24 animatronic dragons.
This weekend it gets a live-action treatment that includes all the familiar characters, situations plus 27 brand new minutes of story.
It’s new, but it isn’t necessarily improved.
On the plus side Canadian director and writer Dean DeBlois, who has been involved with the franchise as a director since the first film, brings a darker tone to the story. It’s still family friendly (although the finale with the Queen Dragon may haunt younger viewers) but the live action brings with it more exciting aerial action scenes, even if the CGI is sometimes murky in the big sequences.
It also adds complexity to the characters, particularly in the relationship between Hiccup (a terrific Mason Thames) and his father (Gerard Butler, who returns from the animated films).
Also welcome is the return of the emotional core of the original. The animated film’s allegory to 9/11 feels even more poignant today as a message of tolerance. As Hiccup cuts through his father’s Viking jingoism with kindness and compassion, the movie reverberates with the franchise’s humanistic themes.
The heart of the film, the relationship between the boy and his dragon, beats loudly. Thames is up against it, reinterpreting Jay Baruchel’s classic voice work, but he brings an earnestness to the character that works.
Toothless the friendly dragon is lovingly rendered in photorealistic CGI, and even with no dialogue, expresses himself as easily as any of the real-life actors.
On the downside, it feels been-there-done-that. Several scenes are shot-for-shot from the original, which, depending on your level of fandom, will either be an homage or a display of a lack of originality.
“How to Train Your Dragon” will likely entertain original fans, and may win over some new ones, but I missed the snappier pacing of the original. The extra 27 minutes brings with it some impressive look-at-me moments—particularly in the final battle scene—but I found it less charming than it animated counterpart.
SYNOPSIS: Renee Zellweger returns as the title character in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.” In this romantic comedy, now streaming on Prime Video, Bridget finds herself widowed with two children and a job as a television producer. Four years after the death of her beloved husband Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), she decides to restart her life, and meets a much younger man.
CAST: Renée Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Isla Fisher, Josette Simon, Nico Parker and Leila Farzad. Directed by Michael Morris.
REVIEW: The general rule of thumb for sequels is that the further you get away from the source, the worse the movies get. The first cut is almost always the deepest, and while there are exceptions, by the time you get to the fourth movie and twenty-fourth year of a franchise, it’s all about diminishing returns.
One cinematic guest who hasn’t worn out their welcome, however, is Bridget Jones as played by Renée Zellweger. Since 2001 at the movies (and 1995 in Helen Fielding’s article and books) her quirky, and often messy, romantic adventures have entertained without a trace of sequelitis.
The new film, “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” sees Bridget restart her romantic life after the death of her husband. “It’s time to live,” she writes in her famous diary.
Of course, there are complications. It wouldn’t be a Bridget Jones movie without them.
The awkward Bridget never met an embarrassing situation she couldn’t amplify, and lip filler is definitely not her thing. Those slapstick moments provide the nostalgic blast of the old Bridget we’ve come to expect, as do cameos by series regulars like Hugh Grant, as aging playboy Daniel Stern (who teaches Bridget’s kids to make a cocktail called a Bad Mommy) and Dame Emma Thompson as Bridget’s friend and gynecologist, but this time around it’s the story’s more poignant aspects that resonate.
Bridget Jones has grown up, somewhat, and so have the movies. This time around there is a melancholy vibe, the result of Mr. Darcy’s passing, and Bridget’s difficulties navigating life as a single mother.
The callbacks to the other movies serve as a reminder of how long we’ve been part of Bridget’s life. And while “Mad About the Boy” is loaded with familiar jokes and echoes the first film in terms of its romantic entanglements (no spoilers here), it is in its examinations of what it means to move on and maybe even find happiness, without leaving the past and someone you love completely behind, that it tills fresh ground. It’s a welcome new chapter for Bridget and for those of us who have known her for almost a quarter century.
