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Megamind, a review by dfmorgan

Megamind

Year: 2010
Director: Tom McGrath
Cast: Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey
Overview: Packed with high-flying action and non-stop laughs, MEGAMIND puts a hilarious new twist on the superhero movie. Super villain Megamind's (Will Ferrell) dreams have come true when he conquers the city's protector, Metro Man (Brad Pitt), gaining control of Metro City. But when a new villain (Jonah Hill) is created and chaos runs rampant, the world's biggest "mind" and his comic sidekick Minion (David Cross) might actually save the day. With an all-star cast, including Tina Fey, and amazing animation, Megamind is "brilliant... the perfect film for anyone of any age" - **** The Sun

Watched: 11th Jun 2011
My Thoughts: Fairly standard animated romp with superheroes and supervillains.

My Rating: A mildly enjoyable 3



(From Dave's DVD/Blu-ray Reviews on June 18th, 2011)

How to Train Your Dragon, a review by Silence_of_Lambs

Summary:
Long ago up North on the Island of Berk, the young Viking, Hiccup (voice: Jay Baruchel), wants to join his town's fight against the dragons that continually raid their town. However, his macho father and village leader, Stoik the Vast (voice: Gerard Butler), will not allow his small, clumsy, but inventive son to do so. Regardless, Hiccup ventures out into battle and downs a mysterious Night Fury dragon with his invention, but can't bring himself to kill it. Instead, Hiccup and the dragon, whom he dubs Toothless, begin a friendship that would open up both their worlds as the observant boy learns that his people have misjudged the species. But even as the two each take flight in their own way, they find that they must fight the destructive ignorance plaguing their world.

My Thoughts:
This movie came with a lot of praise in advance, so I was somewhat skeptic if it could keep up with my expectations.
To cut a long story short: It could do this easily.
I wish I was more eloquent to describe this little masterpiece of modern animation.
The story is kept simple, but every time you feel inclined to say it's predictable, it adds a little surprising turn. Not too much to distract from the mainplot, but always enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen.
BTW: "Glued to the screen", the programming is simply breathtaking, in the flying scenes enjoy the clouds, it's the first time they are not coming around as cotton candy in the sky. Even though the programmers did a great job this movie does not drown in beauty, it's always and only there to support the plot. Other than for example "Ratatouille" where after the umptienth headshaking even the dumbest should have understood that they are now able to trace hair.

The characters are simply gorgeous, you have to love them all.
The sound is ... let's say it this way: Great!

DreamWorks did it all correct again and once more set up a hallmark for other animated films to measure up against.
If you haven't done so already: Watch it, you will not regret it.


My rating: (out of possible 5)

(From Michael's random reviews on October 23rd, 2010)

Tom's Random Star Trek Reviews, a review by Tom

VOY 6.09 The Voyager Conspiracy
Writer: Joe Menosky (Writer)
Director: Terry Windell
Cast: Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Roxann Dawson (B'Elanna Torres), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), Garrett Wang (Harry Kim), Albie Selznick (Tash), Scarlett Pomers (Naomi Wildman), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice (voice))

I completely forgot about this episode. On the page discussing "clip shows" at tvtropes someone mentioned this episode as in interesting twist on clip shows. This episode hardly has any clips from previous episodes, and the ones it got are only few seconds long. Seven malfunctions while downloading too much of Voyager's data into her brain during regeneration, and now sees conspiracies in past incidents and even gets Janeway and Chakotey riled up so much, that they almost start to distrust each other.
This is a nice little bottle episode, but the resolution to Seven's paranoia is too fast. She comes around after a short little pep talk by the captain.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Star Trek Reviews on September 2nd, 2009)