MOVIE: DC League of Super-Pets (2022)

by benmweilertNo Comments
DC League of Super-Pets Year: 2022 Rating: PG Length: 105 minutes / 1.75 hours I’ve never been a huge pet person because of allergies. As such, I initially passed on DC League of Super-Pets (2022) because it didn’t seem interesting to me (I also wasn’t wild about Kevin Hart or Dwayne Johnson as voice actors). Of course, with kids around, I eventually had the opportunity to watch this movie with them. Overall, it’s a pretty basic superhero movie that just happens to feature animals instead of humans. It has the usual jokes that adults would get and the silly little gags that appeal to children. Mostly, it’s just…there. Because it’s telegraphed that each of the pets eventually ends up with one of the members of the Justice League, I was hoping there was slightly more synergy between the animals/powers and the heroes they’d be matched with. Krypto (Dwayne Johnson) makes sense, but he already had a connection to Superman (John Krasinski). At the very least,...
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MOVIE: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

by benmweilert2 Comments
How to Train Your Dragon Year: 2010 Rating: PG Length: 98 minutes / 1.63 hours There are a few movies I would consider pinnacle achievements in story, animation, and heart. When I saw How to Train Your Dragon (2010) in theaters, I knew I had just witnessed something special. It felt like DreamWorks had finally grown up from the bodily humor of the Shrek (2001) era and into something that could be taken seriously. It's no wonder that I still consider How to Train Your Dragon to be one of my favorite films of all time. I have always appreciated the stories that successfully convey the "brains over brawn" mentality without being too critical of either side. This film not only emphasizes a creator/tinkerer mindset, but the importance of empathizing with nature. That it made sense to kill dragons without the full context of why the dragons behaved the way they did didn't make the "brawn" side of the equation the enemy in the way...
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