How to Train Your Dragon 2

By John P. McCarthy, Catholic News Service

Making excellent use of 3-D technology, the 2010 animated adventure “How to Train Your Dragon” earned two Oscar nominations and a large payoff at the box office.

Although it may seem like an eternity to eager young fans, four years is not an overly long time to wait for a sequel given the painstaking nature of the animation process, even when fully computerized.

The team behind “How to Train Your Dragon 2” (Fox) — which is adapted, like its predecessor, from a series of children’s books by Cressida Cowell — used the interval to create more outstanding visuals. Time spent on the script is less in evidence.

The follow-up is pleasing to the eye, mildly amusing and occasionally poignant. But saddled with promoting an ecologically correct agenda, the dialogue often sounds clumsy.

To recap the original film, after rescuing a wounded dragon whom he dubbed Toothless, Viking teen Hiccup (voice of Jay Baruchel) proved to his fellow residents on the Island of Berk that dragons are not to be feared. Now his community lives in harmony with their former adversaries.

Thus at the outset of the sequel, riders are seen racing the happily domesticated creatures in a game that involves sheep and resembles Quidditch from the “Harry Potter” films.

Twenty-year-old Hiccup does not participate — to the dismay of his father Stoick the Vast (voice of Gerard Butler) who is anxious for his son to succeed him as Berk’s chief. Instead, Hiccup and Toothless are out exploring the world.

Joined by Astrid (voiced by America Ferrera), they encounter a dragon trapper named Eret, Son of Eret (voice of Kit Harington) who is helping the malevolent Drago Bludvist (voice of Djimon Hounsou) assemble a dragon army.

The movie kicks into gear during a thrilling sequence in which Hiccup, soaring high above the clouds astride Toothless, sees a masked figure atop its own magnificent mount. This mysterious individual, who turns out to be someone very close to Hiccup, takes him to a secret sanctuary where an array of colorful dragons, many injured or endangered, are protected by a gigantic, ice-breathing alpha dragon.

In due course, Hiccup and his peers must defend both the sanctuary and Berk against the dragons controlled by Drago.

Overseen by writer-director Dean DeBlois, who co-directed and co-wrote “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Lilo & Stitch,” the animation of the various dragon species is worth the price of admission. The wobbly screenplay, which insists, none too subtly, that respect for all creatures is a moral imperative, needs shoring up.

Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig and Jonah Hill are among the actors asked to deliver lines such as: “We will change the world for all dragons and make it a safer place.” “Dragons are kind, amazing creatures that can bring people together.” And, finally, “You have the heart of a chief and the soul of a dragon.”

As these quotes suggest, the movie comes close to elevating dragons above mankind. We are warmongering brutes, whereas they are innately gentle creatures, incapable of evil.

There’s justification for such a view, including the assumption that dragons, like actual animals, do not possess reason or genuine free will and are not tainted by original sin. And it’s no surprise the movie has an ecological message when it seems as if every family-oriented Hollywood movie must do so in order to get made. Still, the theme is taken so far and is expressed in such bald terms that viewers may find it unsettling.

Conversely, when Hiccup is anointed chief at the end, a medicine woman marks his forehead with a dark, cruciform sign that Catholics can interpret as both a nod to Ash Wednesday and as an instructive reminder of the pagan origins of many more ancillary Christian rituals.

While a “How to Train Your Dragon” trilogy is planned, no doubt there will be a wait-and-see period before the third installment gets the final go-ahead. Without compromising their commitment to first-rate animation, the filmmakers would be wise to spend that time honing their script.

Small children may be spooked by some of the imagery, but the episodes in which the dragons behave ferociously are relatively short-lived.

The film contains several scenes with mildly scary fantasy action, one instance of potty language and a single demeaning epithet. The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage.

 

22 Jump Street

By Kurt Jensen, Catholic News Service

Chaotic, foul-mouthed and ultimately loathsome, “22 Jump Street” (Columbia) tries to have it both ways with the subject of homosexuality, alternately snickering at it and defending it.

Male bonding between schlubby undercover cop Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and his partner, dimwitted muscular Jenko (Channing Tatum), is shown with a romantic subtext. But when a skinhead bad guy discovers the two of them in the library stacks and uses a hateful term, Jenko suddenly becomes hugely self-aware and shouts out a lecture on hate speech.

This sequel to 2012’s “21 Jump Street” — like its predecessor, a spoof of the Fox series first broadcast in 1987 — has a couple of expertly staged action sequences strung together by obscenities.

Co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller signal their intentions early on with droll advice from Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman): “Do the same thing as last time. Everyone’s happy.”

In this instalment, Schmidt and Jenko graduate from posing as high school students to infiltrating the fictional Metropolitan City State College where they pretend to be brothers. Their target is a drug dealer who has introduced “Why Phy” to the campus. This imaginary, cocainelike substance gives young people an instant boost in concentration and energy, but ultimately leads to paranoia and death.

A tiresome parade of crotch-level gags ensues as the two pledge a fraternity; Jenko becomes a star on the football team — and takes gay sexual punning to a new level with quarterback Zook (Wyatt Russell) — Schmidt romances Maya (Amber Stevens), who turns out to be the daughter of their perpetually angry commander, Capt. Dickson (Ice Cube); and various students insult them while seeing through their charade.

As in the first movie, the covert program operates in an abandoned church once used by Korean-Americans, only this time, Dickson refers to a large statue of Christ he previously dubbed “Korean Jesus” as “Vietnamese Jesus.” This ugly combination of religious flippancy and mild racism fortunately doesn’t go any further.

  

Maleficent

By John Mulderig, Catholic News Service

Even an iconic villainess may not be all bad.

That’s the message of “Maleficent” (Disney). This live-action, feminist retelling of the Magic Kingdom’s 1959 animated feature “Sleeping Beauty” seeks to rehabilitate the original film’s thoroughly wicked fairy godmother.

Along with its moral shadings, however, director Robert Stromberg 3-D fantasy introduces other novelties that may not sit well with romantics — or with those committed to the traditional family. His picture also has enough dark imagery and bloodless battling to make it unsuitable for the smallest moviegoers.

Angelina Jolie takes up the title character once voiced by Eleanor Audley. As opening scenes show us, Maleficent — portrayed in youth by Isobelle Molloy — was initially a good sprite. In fact, she served as the principal protectress of her enchanted homeland, The Moors, a territory bordered by — and under constant threat of conquest from — a human kingdom full of aggressive warriors.

But an unlikely romance with Stefan (Toby Regbo), a solitary human intruder into The Moors, was to end in a cruel, ambition-fuelled betrayal that would change Maleficent’s whole character, leaving her bitter and vengeful.

Maleficent’s opportunity to mete out her longed-for retribution comes when Stefan (now Sharlto Copley), whose act of treachery toward her has placed him on the throne of the human realm, becomes the father of a baby girl.

At the infant’s christening, Maleficent places a curse on the child, dooming her to fall into an endless slumber on the day before her 16th birthday. Only “true love’s kiss” — a phenomenon Maleficent believes does not exist — will be able to awaken the lass.

Yet, as Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) grows up, her grace and innocent goodness melt Maleficent’s heart. So much so, that — aided by Diaval (Sam Riley), the shape-shifting crow who serves as her assistant and scout, the repentant Maleficent strives to thwart the fulfilment of her own malediction.

As scripted by Linda Woolverton, “Maleficent” can be viewed as an honourable conversion story warning against a hunger for power and a thirst for revenge. Yet it startlingly subverts its source material in a way that can’t be specified for fear of a spoiler but that registers as vaguely anti-male and anti-marriage.

The film contains some harsh action violence. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II — adults and adolescents.