Dreamworks Animation recently send us over the first teaser poster for the upcoming sequel "How to Train Your Dragon 2". The film features the vocal talents of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Kit Harington, Cate Blanchett, Djimon Honsou, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller and Kristen Wiig. "How to Train Your Dragon 2" hits theaters on 6/13/2014.

For more information on this film, you can goto: http://www.howtotrainyourdragon.com.

Plot Synopsis:

The thrilling second chapter of the epic HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON trilogy returns to the fantastical world of the heroic Viking Hiccup and his faithful dragon Toothless. The inseparable duo must protect the peace – and save the future of men and dragons from the power-hungry Drago.

You know something? I was looking forward to this more than I was “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.” Granted I saw the latter first, but anyone who knows me best will more than understand my sheer desire to see this one: I am a die hard Eeyore fan! I got my first Eeyore plush toy before the start of the 5th grade, and I’ve lost track of how many I have collected since; my niece told her friends I have over 3,000, but I beg to differ. To see him play such a pivotal role in “Winnie the Pooh” was a huge delight for me after seeing him get reduced to a mere cameo in “Pooh’s Hefalump Movie.”

Oh yeah, I should talk about the rest of the film as well. That “silly old bear” once again headlines the proceedings as his grumbling tummy develops a mind of its own as it uncontrollably yearns for honey. Sure enough there are beehives nearby with a wealth of Pooh’s favorite food, but the bees are understandably protective of their export. Then there’s the case of Eeyore’s missing tail which has everyone giving him another which (to put it mildly) doesn’t exactly compare. To cap it all off, this classic gang mistakenly believes that Christopher Robin has been kidnapped by an evil monster known as the “Backson” (see the movie, you’ll understand).

For some reason, watching Pooh hurriedly pursuing that sticky substance kept reminding me of Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream” with its characters becoming increasingly desperate for heroin or whatever their minds craved more than their bodies. But that’s just me. I somehow doubt the animators at Walt Disney had any intention of making a G rated movie reminding you of one of the most seriously disturbing films ever made.

“Winnie the Pooh” brings the 100 Acre Wood back to traditional hand drawn animation, something of a rarity these days. While the characters would have looked fantastic with computer animation a la Pixar, doing things the old fashioned way was the right choice. The “Winnie the Pooh” films and shorts have been long since relegated to the Disney channel and direct to DVD realm, and this brought about a drop in quality. But seeing Pooh bear and company on the big screen is a terrific reminder of why we grew up loving these characters in the first place.

Jim Cummings once again provides the voice for Pooh bear as well as Tigger, and he captures the distinctive voices of each character perfectly. Travis Oates gets the innocent stuttering of Piglet down to perfection, and late night talk show host Craig Ferguson makes Owl as jolly as he is oblivious to his own pomposity. Rabbit on the other hand has always been the most anal of A.A. Milne’s characters, so I thank Tom Kenny for making him more likably bearable than he typically is. As for Christopher Robin, Jack Boulter gives a strong British accent and still sounds like a girl at times (just like the actor who voiced him in “Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore”).

Now back to the good part! Eeyore has been a great source of dry humor, and his brand of it is on fully display here. Watching him try on the tails others have given him (Pooh’s clock doesn’t quite do the trick) should at the very least put a smile on your face even if it doesn’t on Eeyore’s. One of the movie’s most hilarious moments comes when Tigger trains him to be the second Tigger, leading to a montage that I would love to say (but can’t quite get myself to believe) would put Rocky to shame. Bud Luckey, who delighted us all with his great animated shorts on “Sesame Street,” memorably voices Eeyore with all his gloominess and reduced expectations in life.

One great addition to this particular version of Winnie the Pooh is of Zooey Deschanel. She doesn’t appear in this movie, but she does sing many of its songs including the classic opening track which introduces Christopher Robin’s friends. Her voice is lovely and it also has a whimsical quality which makes her contributions to this soundtrack all the more wonderful. While the songs by Robert and Kristin Anderson-Lopez aren’t as memorable as anything you heard in “Beauty and the Beast” or “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut,” they fit the material nicely without indulging in cringe-inducing cheesiness.

By bringing Pooh and his friends back to basics, “Winnie the Pooh” really proves to be a wonderfully innocent and nostalgic stroll to the stories our parents read to us at one time or another. It’s the perfect family movie to see this summer even over the more popular (and ridiculously maligned) “Cars 2.” Not once does it boil things down to the lowest common denominator of an audience, and it is a rare piece of cinematic innocence in a world filled with loud explosions and seriously crappy 3D effects. It’s a mere 69 minutes long, but there is more story to this than its running time might suggest (BTW, stick through the end credits).

Now let’s get Eeyore’s name in the title of the next one! Tigger and Piglet both had enough charisma to get a headliner’s status above Winnie the Pooh, so you can’t convince me that Eeyore can’t. It’s not like Owl, Kanga or Roo could upstage him anyway. And regardless of what Tina Fey and Seth Meyers said on “Saturday Night Live,” Eeyore did not commit suicide. As to whether auto-erotic asphyxiation was involved, I have no comment.

EEYORE MOVIE FOR 2012!

* * * ½ out of * * * *

“Megamind” was the kind of movie I expected “Despicable Me” to be when I walked into the theater; a DreamWorks Animation film. It soon turned out that “Despicable Me” was actually a Universal Picture and not from DreamWorks. Since I have been so addicted to and in love with the computer animated epics from Pixar, I felt it was time to see how the other studios compared (if at all). For once, I would be seeing a DreamWorks animated movie without “Shrek” in the title.

But “Despicable Me” and “Megamind” do have one thing in common in that their main character is a villain, one who looks to get the most press for his devious accomplishments. The latter is set around an interesting question: what if the bad guy actually ended up defeating the hero? What would happen then? Whether or not that person works as a banker on Wall Street is beside the point. The villain finds that having all the power he desires doesn’t compare to the struggle of getting it in the first place.

The movie has a great start as it satirizes “Superman” in showing how Megamind himself (voiced by Will Ferrell) is put in a rocket by his parents and sent away to a world that isn’t on the verge of dying. Along the way, his spaceship comes into contact with another whose occupant is goody two shoes Metro Man (voiced by Brad Pitt) who ends up throwing Megamind off course to another destination on Earth. While Metro Man ends up crashing into the home of a loving well to do family, Megamind lands inside a maximum security prison and right in front of hardened inmates. Being that this is a movie for the whole family, we never see this villain in an HBO “Oz” setting or bending over for the soap.

From there, it’s a battle of wits and smarts between Metro Man and Megamind whose resentment from childhood remains unabated. But what I thought was going to be an average movie about good guys versus bad guys really surprised me in the direction it ended up taking. It’s really about Megamind getting exactly what he wants, and soon become bored because there is no one left to fight. Where he goes from there just might surprise you (I strongly stress the word “might”).

What works to the film’s advantage is how knowledgeable it is of the superhero movies we grew up with, namely “Superman.” It gleefully plays around with the superhero’s ego and how it typically gets the best of him, and of how the villain’s evil plans are no longer as scary as they are intended to be. It even gets to where TV reporter Roxanne Ritchi (voiced by Tina Fey) is actually rolling her eyes at Megamind’s threat to drop her into a watery hole with alligators (or are they crocodiles?). Once the movie does take an unexpected left turn, the story does get kind of conventional, but it becomes something that it wasn’t really advertised as.

I have to give Will Ferrell a lot of credit here because he usually just plays the same character over and over in each film he does. When it works like in movies such like “The Other Guys,” its no big deal because we are too busy laughing our asses off. But in “Megamind,” I actually forgot that it was Will Ferrell doing the voice after awhile. That’s saying a lot because his voice is so recognizable after all those years on “Saturday Night Live.” Here, we see and hear a specific character more than the man who gave us the most memorable impersonation of George W. Bush. It also probably helps that Megamind doesn’t look all that much like Ferrell, and that would still be the case if his skin weren’t so blue.

Other celebrity voices featured in “Megamind” include Brad Pitt’s who is a big hoot as the Superman-like Metro Man. Brad’s voice perfectly exudes self-confidence as he has the whole world at his feet, and it’s a great satirical take on the overbearing ego that superheroes have at their disposal and which can easily turn on them if they’re not careful. Listening to him made me wonder how much time he actually spent in the studio recording the dialogue. My guess is about one to two weeks, maybe a month. This must have been one of the easiest jobs for him.

Tina Fey brings her usual perky voice to the role as Roxanne Ritchi, and her sarcastic bite is always a lot of fun to take in. Jonah Hill, fresh off of “Get Him To The Greek” and “Cyrus,” is picture perfect as Roxanne’s cameraman Hal, who of course has the biggest crush on her which remains unrequited like most crushes are. When his heart gets shattered, he ends up doing what most guys do; destroy things at random. It actually took a bit to recognize his voice, but the hilarious David Cross is an inspired piece of casting as the voice of Minion, the henchman (or hench-fish) to Megamind and his devious plans. Other actors featured here are J.K. Simmons who voiced the Warden, Ben Stiller as Bernard, and Justin Theroux as Megamind’s father. Those last three voices I didn’t even recognize until I saw their names in the end credits (or for that matter, IMDB).

I did see “Megamind” in 3D, and the filmmakers actually made really good use of the format. It really gave more excitement to certain scenes like when the characters are on the top of very tall buildings, and I almost got a strong sense of vertigo. Ok, perhaps I am exaggerating a bit in saying that, but it’s still on my mind long after having sat through it. The technology of 3D has truly advanced to being beyond just a mere gimmick, but Hollywood has been abusing it for the extra profit to where the use of it becomes pointless. “Megamind” turns out to be one of the best examples of 3D I have seen this year, and for once I didn’t mind spending an extra couple bucks.

Directing “Megamind” is Tom McGrath who was also responsible for one of several DreamWorks animated movies I have not yet seen, “Madagascar.” I liked a lot of the stuff he came up with here visually. While the animation might not be on the same level as in Pixar movies, there is still a lot of attention put into the detail that’s very impressive. This is especially the case when taking into account the design of the city featured as it looks quite realistic in hindsight. There’s also that little dig at the iconic Obama poster which also made for a good laugh.

Look, it’s not like I expected “Megamind” to be bad or at best a decent times at the movies, but it turned out to be far better than I expected it to be. Like the best Pixar movies, it works as great entertainment not just for kids but for adults as well. It’s a clever take on superheroes, and that makes it one of the more entertaining movies of the 2010 fall season. DreamWorks Animation may still be in the shadow of Pixar, but this shows that they are moving up their game some, and it looks like they may start making more than mere products for consumption.

***½ out of ****

After watching “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I am convinced that Wes Anderson should make as many stop motion animated movies as he possibly can. Nothing against his live action movies, but this form of animation seems really suited to Anderson’s rather unique blend of comedy and dysfunction. While his last film “The Darjeeling Limited” was very good, it started to seem like Wes had been dealing with the same themes once too often. But with the brilliantly made “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” it gives his material a freshness that for a moment seemed to be ready to leave him. I wasn’t sure what to expect when going into the theater, but this turned out to be one of the most enjoyable movies that I saw in 2009. Any frustration I had over not being able to see “Avatar” (it was a family outing, and it didn’t seem right for my 5 year old niece) was completely forgotten.

The movie is based on a children’s novel written by Roald Dahl whom Wes Anderson considers one of his personal heroes. Dahl is the same man who wrote “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “James and the Giant Peach” among other stories, and his work is characterized by a lack of sentimentality and dark humor. Judging from “Rushmore” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” with their strong black humor, it’s no wonder Wes digs this guy!

The Mr. Fox of the story is a cool and exceedingly clever animal, and we first see him with his wife sneaking into a farm to steal food. However, they are caught in a trap which has his wife saying that they should choose a safer form of work. Oh yeah, she also tells him that she’s pregnant, and that changes the dynamics of any relationship in a heartbeat. We catch up with these two a couple of years later as they have found a home within a hole in the ground. Mr. Fox is now a newspaper columnist, and he and his wife are parents to a son, the sullen Ash who constantly feels unappreciated in all he does. Mr. Fox however does not like where the family lives and promises to do better by them. Despite the warnings of his lawyer Badger, he ends up buying a new home in the base of a tree. Their new lodgings are also coincidently right near the gigantic farms owned by three ugly looking farmers, Walter Boggis, Nathan Bunce, and Franklin Bean. So of course, this gets Mr. Fox all excited and back to his usual tricks of stealing food and drink while the rest of the family remains unaware. To quote another fox from a vastly different 2009 movie, “chaos reigns!”

The first thing that people will notice about this movie is its “star studded” (what does that mean anyway?) cast of actors. Voicing the main character of Mr. Fox is the most debonair of movie stars right now, George Clooney. With this, “The Men Who Stare At Goats” and “Up In The Air,” I can’t help but wonder where Clooney gets the time to sleep. At this moment, he’s everywhere it seems, and his constant presence would be ever so annoying if he weren’t as good an actor as he is. George perfectly captures Fox’s confidence without iever becoming overly smug, and he exudes the cleverness Mr. Fox has in getting back at the three farmers.

Meryl Streep who also has had a busy year with this, “Julie & Julia” and “It’s Complicated,” voices Mrs. Fox. I actually wonder how she gets sleep as well doing all this great work and different accents. Meryl is the perfect contrast to Clooney’s charmingly reckless nature, and she serves as the conscience that Mr. Fox needs to hear out more often. Meryl doesn’t do anything incredibly different with her voice like she did for Julia Childs, but the warmth of it is quite seductive at times.

Wes Anderson has also employed many of his regulars for “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” as well. Jason Schwartzman who was featured quite prominently in “Rushmore” and “The Darjeeling Limited” voices Mr. Fox’s son, Ash. Jason perfectly captures the angst Ash feels at never fully winning his dad’s approval and you feel his desperation as he goes to dangerous lengths to get it. Owen Wilson, who co-wrote “The Royal Tenenbaums” with Anderson, has a cameo voicing Ash’s athletic coach Skip. You can tell its Owen right away, and he gives Skip a wonderfully dry voice that gets a good amount of laughs whenever he appears on script. Even Bill Murray, who has had a part in just about all of Wes’ movies, voices Mr. Fox’s lawyer Clive Badger, and he always seems to fit in perfectly in this writer/director’s cinematic universe. Wallace Wolodarsky voices the confidence challenged Kylie Sven Opossum who somehow gets sucked into Mr. Fox’s schemes against his better judgment.

Other voices to be found are Michael Gambon (the current Dumbledore of the “Harry Potter” movies) who voices one of the farmers hell bent on eliminating the thieving Mr. Fox, Franklin Bean. Eric Chase Anderson, who is responsible for doing those illustrations of Wes’ movies when they are released in the Criterion Collection editions, voices Mrs. Fox’s nephew Kristofferson who is perfect in every way Ash is not. But the most surprising voice in the film is from the actor who voices Rat, Bean's security guard. Rat was a French character, so I assumed that the actor voicing him was French. Turns out that it was actually Willem Dafoe! That’s right, the same guy who was in that other delightful movie with a fox in 2009, “Antichrist.”

With just about all of animated movies being released today done with computers and digital effects, it’s refreshing to see other filmmakers go a little retro with the stop motion animation. The work here is brilliantly done, and I was surprised at how lifelike everything looked. Movies like this must require an exceeding amount of patience to make because they must take years to produce. It also fits right in with Anderson’s quirky sense of humor which remains intact a good ten years or so after “Rushmore.”

And of course, the story fits in with Anderson’s common cinematic themes of dysfunctional families (anyone have a non-dysfunctional family?) and unique individuals who don’t always get the attention they think they deserve. Mr. Fox’s son Ash seems the biggest victim of all that goes on as he constantly struggles to win the attention of his father who holds his nephew Kristofferson in higher regard. Then again, how many foxes do you know of that practice meditation on a regular basis? Give Kristofferson some credit; he doesn’t waste time disemboweling himself like that wolf in “Antichrist” (sorry, I can’t stop mentioning that movie).

I also really dug the soundtrack that Wes chose for this movie. Each of his movies has had a great selection of music that veers from classic British rock songs to American rock among other genres. With “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Wes includes some songs from the Beach Boys and Burt Ives which fuel the movie with an undeniable sense of innocence and adventure. It has also made me an instant fan of The Bobby Fuller Four whose “Let Her Dance” plays during one of the most joyful moments of the film. Composing the score for “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” is Alexandre Desplat who has composed music for movies like “Firewall” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I love how Alexandre captures the infectious spirit of the proceedings that take place here. Even as things get increasingly bleak for Mr. Fox and company, he helps to keep things constantly upbeat.

Is this a kid appropriate movie? I think so. It did get a PG rating which seems appropriate to me. There are many bottles of alcoholic apple cider and some smoked chickens that may give you the wrong impression of the goings on being displayed, but I really think that the movie is harmless. Compare this to the recently released sequel to “Alvin and the Chipmunks” which has not so subtle references to classics like “Taxi Driver” and “Silence of the Lambs” among others. This is a film aimed at kids, and they are going in droves to see it when they could be seeing something far more invigoratingly creative like this.

While you might be more likely to see this movie on DVD or Blu-Ray (or VHS if it’s still available), “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” really is a fantastic movie that deserves a big audience. Wes Anderson, along with co-writer Noah Baumbach (“The Squid & The Whale” and “Margot at the Wedding”) have managed to take their fascination with families that are less than perfect and put it in a context that will not scar your kids for life. It was also cool to see George Clooney play a character that (unlike in “The Men Who Stare At Goats”) was not afraid to dance.

Was it worth not going to see “Avatar” that day and waiting longer to see it? I hate to say it but yeah.

**** out of ****