A little bit more catching up to do. I'll try and keep these brief.
'How To Train Your Dragon 2' (PG) **1/2
Set five years after the events of the first movie, 'How To Train Your Dragon 2' follows Hiccup (voice of Jay Baruchel) and Toothless as they continue their adventures and explore their world. But this soon leads to threatening the peace between man and dragons as the two discover an ice cave full of new wild dragons, a mysterious Dragon Rider (voice of Cate Blanchett), and Drago (voice of Djimon Hounsou), who wants to take over the world with a dragon army. Other returning characters include Hiccup's father Stoick (voice of Gerard Butler), Gobber (voice of Craig Ferguson), Astrid (voice of America Ferrera), Snotlout (voice of Jonah Hill), Ruffnut and Tuffnut (voices of Kristen Wiig and T.J. Miller) and Fishlegs (voice of Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
I loved the first one and was very much looking forward to this one. But only some chuckles (the antics of Toothless and the sheep) and some thrills managed to keep me awake during this movie. Seriously. Ask any of other people that I went to see this movie with. I was dozing off during this movie, something I haven't done during a movie since 'Shutter Island'. Some scenes just go on and on for far too long and I just couldn't get invested in it and quite frankly I was bored. And that's saying something when I get bored during a movie. This still has some great animation and the 3D was pretty good, but overall I was disappointed. I seem to be in the minority with this opinion, but oh well.
'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' (PG-13) **1/2
The heroes in a half-shell have returned to the big screen much to the dismay of the Internet. April O'Neil (Megan Fox) is a struggling reporter who stumbles upon a heist by the villainous Foot Clan and encounters our mysterious titular heroes Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Donatello (Jeremy Howard), Raphael (Alan Ritchson), and Leonardo (Johnny Knoxville). Along with Master Splinter (Tony Shalhoub), April and the Turtles must save the city from an evil tycoon (William Fichtner) and Shredder (Tohoru Masamune), the leader of the Foot Clan. Also in the cast are Whoopi Goldberg as April's boss, Will Arnett as April's cameraman, and "SNL" alum Abby Elliott and current "SNL" star Taran Killam in brief cameos.
I didn't have the animosity towards this movie that the rest of the internet seemed to have as soon as it was announced that Michael Bay was producing it. I just went "Okay" and went about my life. The movie itself is all right. It works primarily whenever the focus is solely on the Turtles and their antics and back and forth banter with each other. When it's all on them the movie is fun to watch and quite funny. But when it's solely on the humans, it gets really dumb. But the special effects and most of the action scenes are very good. If you go in with an open mind, you probably won't think it's all that bad. But if you're one of those close minded Internet people who just sits behind a computer screen and talks $#!% about the movie solely because of Michael Bay's involvement, well, you're probably not gonna like it since you're already expecting it to not be very good.
'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' (PG-13) ***1/2
It's been ten years since the events in 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes', and the disease has almost wiped out humanity with bands of survivors here and there. After Caeser (Andy Serkis) and his band of apes come across a small band of humans led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke), loyalties are tested and tensions rise as both sides are brought to the brink of war. Included in the cast are Keri Russell as Malcolm's wife, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Malcolm's son, and Gary Oldman as the leader of the remaining known human survivors.
'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' caught me off guard back in 2011. Initially I didn't want to see it but after hearing many good things about it I decided to quickly go see it after watching a Colts game and I was surprised by how much I liked it. In my opinion it was one of the best movies I'd seen that year. So I went into this with much anticipation and...it lived up to it. Could've been around twenty minutes shorter, but this was still a very good movie with great special effects and another great motion capture performance by Andy Serkis as Caeser. It's a shame that none of the major awards are given out to motion capture performances. Anyway, the movie is also quite tense and thrilling, and much like the previous movie it actually gets you to care about the plight of talking CGI monkeys simply wanting to survive. Much darker than the previous movie, but then again the inevitable fall of humanity isn't exactly a lighthearted topic. Saw this in 3D only because the 2D screening was a little late, and the 3D wasn't worth it. It's not as good as 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' but still a very worthy sequel.
'Guardians of the Galaxy' (PG-13) ***
Thief Peter Quill aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldhana), bounty hunters Rocket Raccoon (voice of Bradley Cooper) and Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), and vengeful warrior Drax The Destroyer (Dave Bautista) form a very unlikely team to keep a stolen orb from getting into the hands of Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace). Also in the cast are John C. Reilly as a member of the military force the Nova Corps, Glenn Close as the leader of the Nova Corps, Josh Brolin as Thanos (from the end credits scene in 'The Avengers'), Michael Rooker as the thief who kidnapped Quill as a child and taught him to be a thief, Karen Gillan as Gamora's assassin sister Nebula, Benicio Del Toro as the Collector (from the end credits scene in 'Thor: The Dark World'), Djimon Hounsou as one of Ronan's henchman, and Stan Lee making his usual Marvel movie cameo appearance.
Saw this movie twice in theaters (2D the first time and IMAX 3D the second time) and both times it was a lot of fun and definitely one of the better movies in the Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Great special effects, often quite funny, an awesome soundtrack, fun cameo appearances, the main cast works well off of each other, never takes itself too seriously (though it does have it's emotional gut punches here and there that are on the more serious side of things)....it's just a fun time at the movies. And since it's Marvel yes there is a scene at the end of the credits, but it's only a scene with an awesome (unlikely) cameo that I don't think has any relevance to a future Marvel movie....for now. And yes, the IMAX 3D was worth it. Definitely looking forward to the next Marvel movie, that being the next 'Avengers' movie.
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