Son of Odin

finally dreamworks has a masterpiece on their hands. this movie was on the level of pixar. fantastic movie. i hope it pulls in more dough than the crap that looks like shrek 4. this movie had no weak spots. perfect voice acting also. plus, as someone above mentioned, no cultural references.

SonOfAStu

I tend to greatly respect your opinions on movies and such but you're really starting to sound like a broken record with this crap in every animated movie thread. We get it. You like "real" voice actors.

I literally thought to myself when I saw this movie today, "I bet Suprmallet will make a comment about the unnecessary celebrity voices."

Giantrobo

Saw it today, in glorious 2D thank you very much, and loved it.

Craig Ferguson and Gerard Butler

Blu Man

It was great in 3D, most notably the flight scenes, which in my opinion, were filmed in a way that made you feel like you were in the air better then the flight scenes in Avatar.

mdc3000

I saw it on the weekend in 3D and thought it was very good...but not great. I thought the cast was fine, the 3D sequences were great and the story was well done... but it didn't have very many laughs. I appreciated they didn't go to the stale Dreamworks well of riffing on pop culture to get some chuckles in, but I thought there was a lot of comedy in the situations that they didn't fully mine. 3.5/5

Supermallet

Well, it distracted me. This kind of thing always distracts me. I'll replace my movie specific concerns with "Generic complaint about casting live action actors over better, cheaper voice actors who would have immersed us more in the world of the movie" if that helps.

Supermallet

I don't know why the IMAX is being listed as 1.44:1, but I helped build an IMAX print of it the other night, and it was not full screen.

Edit: Just double checked it at work, and it's definitely scope.

Hokeyboy

AP article about how Dreamworks Animation stock dropped nearly 10% due to Dragon's financial performance.

I'm definitely checking out the movie later in the week, but here's the scary thing. If the film is perceived as a financial disappointment or underperformer, Dreamworks Animation might instantly revert to the BIG! CELEBRITY! VOICES!!, hip flash-in-the-pan songs on the soundtrack, and endless moronic pop culture gags, since these will be perceived as the means to put asses in seats.

And that would be really, REALLY sad.

The Bus

I still can't believe Michael Pachter has the world's most fun analyst job.

Supermallet

That would be really sad. But then again, they're already doing Shrek 4, so how would we know the difference?

Hokeyboy

Yeah but Shrek is kind of it's own thing at this point. When a total and unrepentant POS like Shrek 3 can pull in 3/4 of a billion dollars or thereabouts, the formula will not be fucked with too hard. Still, there's Overmind to look forward to.

Jon2

I agree with you about celebrity voice casting.

Not so much because I find it distracting, but because I think it's pointless. If celebrities are being paid more (and I'm not sure this is always the case), it's also an unnecessary expense.

I often have this feeling that if Mel Blanc were alive today, he wouldn't be able to get work.

I just watched 9 last night and, except for Christopher Plummer, didn't recognize anyone else's voice. Not Wood, Reilly, Connelly, Glover or even Martin Landau. Plummer's voice was very fitting for the character, but was his voice really necessary for the character? No.

Obviously the studios think celebrity voices influence BO, but I doubt they put people in seats. Most kids don't know nor care about celebrity voices, and that probably doesn't influence Mom or Dad much either.

And here's the thing... it would be very easy to test the worth (or not) of celebrity voices. A few dozen sneak preview tests without credits and appropriate audience polling would determine much.

That said, at the very least, I have to admit that I have yet to hear a celebrity voice that was miscast. I think all the studios have done well with character appropriate voice casting.

I just think that celebrity voices aren't necessary.

And, btw, I saw HTTYD and thought it was very, very good. I wish there had been a little more of how Hiccup trained his dragon and less of the montage representing it and less of some other sequences. I think they spent a too much time before getting to Hiccup meeting Toothless and too little time of them together. I would like to see more of the two characters.

Giles

I did trek out the Egyptian to see this again, and: "oh ... my .... god". The 2K 'Xtreme Digital' presentation trounced the Sony 4K presentation by a landslide. The XD system with it's Barco 2K projector threw a lot of light onto the huge 70 ft. wide screen and revealed a ton of visual information I didn't initially see. The opening night time action scene was clearly visible and wasn't a muddy mess as I had noted before. The sound, from 24 speakers places all around the auditorium (6 alone, behind the screen) was simply A-mazaing! 2 speaker surround from IMAX theatres just doesn't cut it. The whole XD experience was a true cinematic visual and auditory sensory playground ... with Dragons no less

maingon

Thought this was a good movie, Seen it tonight and loved the dragon designs they were so freaking cool looking, very original looking. I seen it in 3d and I thought the 3d was okay, I would of rather seen it in 2d as the 3d made the picture look dull, colors werent as vibrant.

I didnt like this as much as Kung Fu Panda, I stilll thought this was a really good movie, visuals were great, the Hair in this movie looks fantastic and the dragons were awesome and worth seeing it just for the dragons.

B

lizard

Got a chance to see this a couple of days ago (in 2D, no 3D option here) and enjoyed it more than expected—and reviews left my expectations pretty high. One of the best animated movies I've seen in years. The story kept me guessing and didn't feel predictable to me. And I admit I laughed out loud at thejoke.

I'm a bit surprised that it isn't doing better but BOM reports that Dragon is picking up three 3D screens this weekend despite the debut of Clash of the Titans, so it may have some legs.

fernsita

I heard this movie was really good! I think I might consider watching it now!

TomOpus

I wanted to thank you guys fir the very positive remarks. While trying to decide which movie to see today, I told my g/f about the remarks from here so we decided to give it a shot. Btw we went to the Barrywoods 24 IMAX.

She can be tough on movies but we both loved it. The 3D was very well done. Did not feel gimmicky at all. Nice story and music. Sound and picture presentation was awesome. 4 thumbs way up.

mraw

It's quite possibly the best animated film I've ever seen. I thoroughly enjoyed it! I paid $17 to see it in IMAX 3D and afterwards the cost didn't bother me at all. The next day I went to Wal-Mart and bought the 4 dragon action figures

Mike86

Went to this last night in 3D and absolutely loved it. I wanted to go to the regular 2D version but got out-voted by my friends. Still very enjoyable though.

valkyrie

I wonder if the news stories about the ridiculous raising of ticket prices had anything to do with the low take. I, for one, was blown away by how much they wanted for tickets. I took 2 adults and 2 kids and the tix were $68. That's nuts. Count me in as not going to the theater any more. The kids are gonna have to wait for the blu-ray. $17.50 a ticket is just plain wrong.

That said, loved the movie, I thought it rivaled most pixar movies, and looked 20 times as good as Toy Story 3 based on the trailer before it. After seeing that trailer, I'm hoping I can use my Blu-ray cash for something else, cause it looks really dumb. Did we really need Barbie and Ken? Yeesh.

JJE-187

Saw this with my 5 year old today and it was a great movie. He loved it and I thought it was one of the best animated movies I have seen theatrically. I would rank it right up there with the best Pixar movies

lizard

Dragon is plugging along, with an estimated weekend take of $29.2 million for a total of $92 million, despite three new movies opening this weekend, including Clash of the Titans in 3D. Not a big hit, but not a flop either.

tanman

I wish this was doing much better both in hype and ticket sales. This was definitely one of Dreamworks best movies to date. I too appreciated the lack of pop culture however at the same time it seemed that they relied on modernizing the vikings instead of creating a culture that was more believable. And why would vikings have a scottish accent? Is that kind of like how all greeks have an old english accent?

Giantrobo

Every one, including Craig Ferguson, has either joked or bitched about the Scottish Vikings. Yet no one says shit about the "Valley Girl" kids.

I'd believe a Scottish Viking over a "Valley Girl" Viking any day.

Darknite39

I wasn't sure about the movie when I went in with the g/f.

Good lord, I loved it. I want to see it again. I actually found myself getting emotional during certain sections.

The 3D gave me a headache for about 20 mins, but I enjoyed that, too (except for the price--yeesh!).