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alias_sqbrTwo movies I watched and enjoyed after squee from people on Tumblr and other places. Taken together they have a whole heap of things I like in a movie :)
How to Train Your Dragon
This is a genuinely fantastic kids film. A moderately straightforward "Boy doesn't fit in, befriends powerful creature, saves the day through determination and goodness, gets the girl" narrative, and some bits rubbed me the wrong way the ways these things usually do (the major flaw being that the love interest does pretty much nothing notable once she becomes a love interest) but overall it was really well done. The hero is a genuinely sweet, decent and clever guy, there's a strong moral about the pointlessness of unnecessary violence, it's funny and well characterised, there's two kickass female characters and pretty pretty dragons. The portrayal of disability is surprisingly nuanced too.
The Losers
So this was nowhere near as good a film, but I liked it anyway. It dragged in parts and was very cheesy and B-grade, but in a good naturedly grungy way, and it felt like they took the characters seriously (apart from the villain, who fell very flat). Specifically, Zoe Saldana's character stays kickass right to the very end of the film. While the hero and villain are white a large proportion of all the other characters aren't and for this sort of film it was pretty low on cliched exotification. I liked how the violence wasn't too glossy and sanitised, while likeable the Losers felt like genuinely dangerous and slightly sociopathic people.
Also, Jeffery Dean Morgan or Zoe Saldana are remarkably badass and pretty, especially when they're together :)
How to Train Your Dragon
This is a genuinely fantastic kids film. A moderately straightforward "Boy doesn't fit in, befriends powerful creature, saves the day through determination and goodness, gets the girl" narrative, and some bits rubbed me the wrong way the ways these things usually do (the major flaw being that the love interest does pretty much nothing notable once she becomes a love interest) but overall it was really well done. The hero is a genuinely sweet, decent and clever guy, there's a strong moral about the pointlessness of unnecessary violence, it's funny and well characterised, there's two kickass female characters and pretty pretty dragons. The portrayal of disability is surprisingly nuanced too.
The Losers
So this was nowhere near as good a film, but I liked it anyway. It dragged in parts and was very cheesy and B-grade, but in a good naturedly grungy way, and it felt like they took the characters seriously (apart from the villain, who fell very flat). Specifically, Zoe Saldana's character stays kickass right to the very end of the film. While the hero and villain are white a large proportion of all the other characters aren't and for this sort of film it was pretty low on cliched exotification. I liked how the violence wasn't too glossy and sanitised, while likeable the Losers felt like genuinely dangerous and slightly sociopathic people.
Also, Jeffery Dean Morgan or Zoe Saldana are remarkably badass and pretty, especially when they're together :)
