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Competent Live-Action ‘HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON’ Is a Shot-for-Shot Remake Absent Its Own Merit

Few modern animated films have achieved the emotional clarity, visual majesty, and thematic resonance of 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon and its two sequels. They’re bold, inventive works that understood the cinematic power of animation without pandering to children or dulling their edges for mass appeal. So yes, I went into the live-action remake with something bordering on dread. But also, curiosity. Against my better judgment, and seduced slightly by some early, suspiciously polite buzz, I gave it a shot. Read More

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Tim Burton’s Creatively Bankrupt ‘DUMBO’ Doesn’t Take Flight

As told by Tim Burton, Disney’s Dumbo is a glossy kiddo-approved spectacle piece sure to entertain the youngins in the audience while offering no reason for its existence beyond the plain-faced cry for box office chowder. Adapting the 1941 story of a circus elephant whose oversized ears enables him to fly, Burton and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (Ghost in the Shell) co-opt the basic premise of the original tale and fluff out the barebones story with a cast of uninteresting human characters and a corporate subplot that offers a kids a warning about bad employers and carefully reading contracts.  Read More