NEW YORK (AP) --- What a refreshing change "How to Train Your Dragon" brings to the cartoon world: The creatures are not all that cute, and they do not speak a word.
DreamWorks Animation has been at the head of the pack for adorable, fast-talking critters with such movies as "Over the Hedge," ''Kung Fu Panda" and the "Madagascar" series.
With "How to Train Your Dragon," the filmmakers tone down the glib factor and tell a pretty good action yarn, a boy-and-his-dragon story filled with fiery Viking battles, swordplay and dazzling aerial imagery aboard the flying reptiles.
For small children, the movie may not rate as high on the laugh and sight-gag meter as some of those earlier, more slapstick-y DreamWorks tales. After a slow, rather droning start, though, "How to Train Your Dragon" takes off on an exhilarating ride through the ancient Norse world, the hardscrabble landscape also a pleasant change from the softer realms of other cartoons.
Based on Cressida Cowell's children's book, the movie follows the adventures of Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), the scrawny, misfit son of Viking chief and master dragon-slayer Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler).
A disappointment to his dad and a joke to his community, Hiccup is determined to make up for his lack of brawn by using his wits to bring down a Night Fury, the fiercest breed among the dragons that besiege his island village.
He actually succeeds, but finds he lacks the hard heart it takes to finish off the dragon. Instead, Hiccup feeds and nurses the wounded dragon, which he names Toothless.
A shrewd observer, Hiccup picks up on the finer points of dragon behavior from his new pet, which he applies to his dragon-slaying lessons run by blacksmith Gobber (Craig Ferguson).
With his skills as a dragon whisperer, Hiccup becomes a local hero among the villagers and a rival for fierce classmate Astrid (America Ferrera).
Inevitably, Hiccup must prove his worth in battle, banding with his fellow trainees (played by a voice cast that includes Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig and Christopher Mintz-Plasse) in an assault against a colossal dragon that would send a T-Rex scurrying for cover.
The voice work among the cast is a bit uneven, Baruchel's nasally monotone threatening to whine the movie to death early on.
DreamWorks has gotten good mileage out of a Scottish accent in the "Shrek" movies, so the filmmakers let Scotsmen Butler and Ferguson go to town with boisterous brogues that liven up the dialogue. But their voices also beg the question, why do the adults speak in Scottish accents and the youths in American ones? No biggie, just wondering.
In Cowell's book, the dragons also spoke in their own language. The filmmakers, including writer-directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois ("Lilo & Stitch"), wisely dispense with the talking reptiles.
The creatures are more fierce and mysterious in attack mode — and more comical when they fall under Hiccup's spell — without opening their yaps to chew the fat.
"How to Train Your Dragon" really soars in the visual department, the animators presenting a 3-D world of bleak, mythical beauty in the island's crags and mists. Some of the flying scenes are gorgeous, Toothless the dragon hovering above pillowy clouds against a shimmering night sky.
And to clarify an earlier point: While these dragons are not all that cute, Toothless, like any faithful pet, proves utterly endearing by the end.
"How to Train Your Dragon," a DreamWorks Animation release distributed by Paramount, is rated PG for sequences of intense action and some scary images, and brief mild language. Running time: 98 minutes. Three stars out of four.
LOS ANGELES (AP) --- Atom Egoyan's sex thriller "Chloe" is a pure guilty pleasure, if you take away that part about pleasure.
The devoted cast led by Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried really burrows into the roles, but the intense performances cannot conceal the fact that these characters are shallow narcissists at their best and outright crazy people at their worst.
This marital story of infidelity, deceit and obsession is not much more absurd than "Fatal Attraction," one of the great guilty pleasures in screen history.
Yet "Chloe" rings false from the start, the story is dead on arrival from the moment suspicious wife Moore, convinced husband Neeson is cheating on her, hires call girl Seyfried to push the man's buttons and see if it's true.
Really, who does this rather than just confronting the lech and having it out?
There's something off, and off-putting, about each of these characters in the screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson, who adapted "Chloe" from the equally lurid and unsatisfying French thriller "Nathalie."
The characters are so abnormal and their situation so contrived that it's impossible to sit back and enjoy the train wreck the way you can revel in Glenn Close murderously popping out of that bathtub one last time in "Fatal Attraction."
The tone and explicit sensuality of "Chloe" are reminiscent of earlier frank dramas from Egoyan such as "Exotica" and "Where the Truth Lies." The sex in "Chloe" is pretty tame and fleeting, though, robbing it of another guilty-pleasure component.
What's more boring than watching dull sex on screen is listening to people talk about dull sex on screen, and that's how the characters in "Chloe" spend much of their time.
The film Neeson was shooting when his wife, Natasha Richardson, was fatally injured in a skiing accident a year ago, "Chloe" casts him in a subordinate role as music professor David. The dominant relationship here is the one that plays out between Moore's gynecologist Catherine and Seyfried's prostitute Chloe.
Catherine and David's marriage has gone cold, and she feels she's losing touch with her 17-year-old son, Michael (Max Thieriot), who's more in sync with his dad.
After David misses a flight home on his birthday, spoiling the elaborate surprise party Catherine has arranged, she finds a text message and photo of him with a female student that stokes her suspicions.
What's a jealous wife to do? Catherine engages Chloe to test David's faithfulness (their marriage vows clearly did not include a provision against entrapment).
A sophisticated woman such as Catherine should be able to see what the audience realizes at the outset, that someone in this threesome may be more than a little nuts. But suspicion and anger escalate as Chloe relates intimate details of her encounters with David, stimulating dormant passions in Catherine.
Before long, director Egoyan is posing the questions, who's cheating on whom, who's fixating on whom? But who really cares?
These are not interesting people. Their actions are not believable. Where they end up brings no insight or satisfaction.
So maybe you'll feel a little guilty peering in on their misfortunes. But it'll be hard to take much pleasure from the experience.
"Chloe," a Sony Pictures Classics release, is rated R for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue, nudity and language. Running time: 96 minutes. Two stars out of four.
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