How to Train Your Dragon

Goolphipp Award: 4.3 (Worth 11 Bucks)

Goolsby:
Phipps and I saw this separately. I saw this after her, and was excited because she told me it was really cute, and it's true, this movie is super cute - and surprisingly teaches a really good lesson I thought. I loved the characters. The whole movie I was trying to figure out the voice of Hiccup. I could not for the life of me place Jay Baruchel's voice. Baruchel is know for his roles in Knocked Up and the recent She's Out of My League. The animation was great. I saw this in 3D and was happy with the 3D moments, but not overly impressed. Being an animal lover, I guess my love extends to mythical animals too - I absolutely loved Toothless the Night Fury dragon. The friend I saw the movie with said she was surprised to see how much of the dragon's characteristics were similar to a dog. It's true, but it didn't bother me at all. I loved his personality. I liked how the Viking world was depicted and I think this story sends a good message to kids. The one shocker though, the ending. There was one detail about the ending I didn't see coming at all.

Goolsby overall: 4.25
Sign me up for dragon flight lessons!

Phipps:
I really liked this movie. Lots of jokes and action. The animation was good. I'll probably end up buying this movie someday. It is pretty violent, and some of the dragons are scary, so I'd say audience would be 6+. I saw this movie with a 10-year-old boy, who ended up really liking the movie also. Again, know your kid. I have two things more to discuss. First, I thought it was really interesting that the older generation of Vikings actually had accents, while Hiccup's generation didn't. It struck me as strange. Second, the ending. What the dirty. Totally unexpected. I can't help but wonder, was it necessary? Bottom line, How to Train Your Dragon is a good movie. See it.

Phipps overall: 4.5
You can't beat dragons.

The Secret of Kells

Goolphipp Award: 2.8 (Wait for DVD)

Goolsby:
Phipps and I were drawn to this movie because of Ireland. Clearly our trip overseas left an impression of us. I would say this is the second recent Ireland-based movie we have seen frankly, just cause we need an Ireland-fix. So, while we were in Dublin we went and saw the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College. The book is amazing. For a tiny tiny background of the Book of Kells, Wikipedia gladly supplies us with this description, "...an illuminated manuscript in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was transcribed by Celtic monks ca. 800."

We got to see select pages of the book on our visit. And let me tell you something, it was pretty amazing. The detail! So we were pretty stoked to see this children's cartoon story surrounding the Book of Kells.

The basic idea - a boy helps in the creation of the Book of Kells, and gets into quite a bit of adventure along the way.

This cartoon was actually semi-hard to follow. I think it would be best to go in to this thinking of it more as a fable or oral history, not a movie cartoon. I have to say us State-side people have been exposed to fewer types of cartoons or animated movies. We have a simple plot and goal laid out in the very beginning of the movie. This movie however, sort of wandered around. It was a solid story, filled with scary moments, amazing symmetry which mirrored the insanely detailed book itself. I say just sort of sit along for the ride in this movie, don't expect anything at all.

Oh... and a bit of a tidbit if you do go see this movie, wolves went extinct in Ireland around 1773.

Oh! There was a black man depicted in the film that bordered, no, straddled the racist line. Did he really need that big of lips?

Goolsby overall: 2.75
To quote Phipps during the first 3 days of our trip to Ireland, "I don't get it." Which is sad to say, and I wish I connected more with this film. Where's someone from Ireland when you need 'em?

Phipps:
I don't get it. This movie was spectacular visually, but plotwise, I pretty confused. I felt like I needed an Irish brain to get all the references. This is definitely a piece of Irish culture, because like most things in Ireland, nothing is outright clear (from street signs to movies apparently). The roots of this (I was told) is fear of invasion, which is actually depicted in this movie with faceless buffalo-like Vikings. It boils down to a story about fairies and magic...which helped write a transcription of the Christian gospels. Paradoxical, right?

This is not a kids movie. The meandering plot combined with very serious and scary animation scenes - I would suggest 10+ (or 12+ to be on the safe side) on this one.

This movie did get an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, which is well-deserved for the actual animation. The visuals were wonderful, and they all had their roots in the Book of Kells itself. The entire movie was full of filigree motifs and geometric pattern design. Frankly, it was amazing, especially because I have seen the real book in person. I got that part of it. The character Brother Aidan, was the spitting image of Willie Nelson as a cartoon...with an Irish voice. Absolutely hilarious. I felt like the people in general were funny looking - what was up with the notches on the ears?

Bottom line: Not for kids, tough to follow, but worth a watch for the visuals. Read up on the Book of Kells before viewing.

Phipps overall: 3
Interesting, but I was too lost to fully enjoy it. That 3 is for visuals alone.