Two Days 'Til Retirement

In a weekend where there were four major theatrical releases, at least two high-ceiling limited releases and one major expansion into wide release, there's one reason that people didn't go out and enjoy Dredd, an excellent genre flick which sadly finished in sixth place at the box office and hasn't gotten the love it deserves. It wasn't House at the End of the Street or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which mostly attracted young women. It wasn't Trouble with the Curve, which appealed mainly to older folks. And it wasn't The Master, which is more like Oscar bait than blockbuster. No, for a film appealing mainly to young men, Dredd was hampered by the fact that most of their potential audience was instead down the hall with End of Watch. This movie is perfectly in director David Ayer's wheel house. The writer/director has been basing his stories in Los Angeles for over a decade, and he's best known for the man who wrote Training Day, which won Denzel Washington an Oscar and is this century's epitome of Los Angeles crime drama. All this time later, and Ayer still has stories to tell about the LAPD, though thankfully they're not all about corruption and scandal, as he proves here.

Just another day in the office.

Police officers and best friends, Officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) are two of the hottest shots, regularly seen patrolling the worst areas of South Central Los Angeles. End of Watch details their close friendship, rivalries and pranks with other officers, and their everyday lives, which include Zavala's expecting a child with wife Gabby (Natalie Martinez) and Taylor's burgeoning romance with a Janet (Anna Kendrick), whom he meets at school. When the duo discover an even darker side to the city in the form of the Mexican drug cartels, Taylor and Zavala find themselves on the wrong side of Hispanic gangs that have lately been rising in prominence in the area. One night, that brewing conflict will all come to a very violent conclusion

No, ma'am, this isn't Magic Mike.

Strangely, though, that finale really takes its time to come around, meaning that most of the first two acts of the film are not intensely focused on the cartels but the everyday challenges of being a beat cop in LA. Having had a grandfather on the force in Atlantic City, I appreciate how the movie took care to present the men and women of the law as normal people with families and problems and times both good and bad. Ayer humanizes his heroes, and while they're considered among the best of their class, Taylor and Zavala are still unpredictable, prone to both mistakes and heroics. Most importantly, they're men who love their jobs, which makes it incredibly easy to root for them.

Paperwork: the stuff that keeps the world spinning.

Ayer also makes an effort to portray the story from a gritty, street-level perspective. To that end, he has incorporated the popular "found footage" method by showing the footage as being recorded by the two officers via a handicam and some fairly sophisticated flash cameras attached to their uniforms, all as part of a college project for Taylor. It does a great job of making much of the film feel natural and off the cuff, but it does present its own set of problems. For one, while it's feasible for some police helicopter footage to make its way into the film to present a sense of scale, some of the movie contains far less likely cam footage, for instance from the perspective of the Latino gang that just happens to be recording their own misdeeds at the same time as our heroes. It's far less natural than the police footage, and gives far too much away, as I would have preferred more mysterious and less predictable antagonists. Also, the found footage attempt turns in a few clunkers, as more than a few occasions see scenes apparently not captured by anybody's camera, but are shot just the same. Ayer is quoted as saying (in an interview on Open Letters Monthly) that if you're wondering who is carrying the camera, then he lost you. Well, as a critic, he did lose me. It wasn't often, but occasionally my thought process turned to the fact that nobody could have been casually shooting at a certain moment. Thankfully, those were few and far between, and most of the camera efforts were done well enough to escape serious scrutiny.

...And there was much rejoicing.

Of course, none of this would have been worth anything if not for the excellent acting and chemistry of leads Gyllenhall and Pena. Ayer did a great job preparing the two actors for their constant partnership throughout the film, and it really shows in their ability to bounce seemingly random things off one another from scene to scene while still remaining relevant to the story. Gyllenhaal has struggled to define himself in modern Hollywood, going from young talent to pseudo action star to the character-driven performances in which he often excels. While he has sometimes struggled with consistency, that doesn't happen here, and he brings his special brand of intensity that often worms its way into his best work. Pena meanwhile has always been excellent, while not necessarily getting the choicest roles (the lot of Latinos in the movie industry, unfortunately). Still, he's often the best part of even bad movies, and he rewards Ayer's confidence in him by simply being the most wonderful, animated thing on the screen at any given time. Together the pair's antics are as authentic as anything I've seen in theaters this year, and their interaction with the surrounding landscape looks completely natural and familiar. While the film mainly centers around its leads, the pair get a lot of support from Kendrick and Martinez, as well as Frank Grillo, America Ferrera, Cody Horn and David Harbour as their fellow officers.

...here's the bad news...

The only real problem with End of Watch is its mess of an ending, which is almost completely predictable if you actually pay attention to the story (or the trailers, for that matter), and understand the usual cop movie cliches. This isn't really a surprise, as Ayer seems to like his tragedy-laden final acts, and to be fair it really doesn't feel out of place in the grand scheme of things. But for once I would love to be surprised, and Ayer just isn't the director who is going to do that for me. End of Watch is still an inspired production, with much more to like than not. Ayer needs to up his writing skills though, especially if he's going to keep working around treatments of the same subject matter. While I still believe Dredd is the best option for you action lovers in theaters right now, End of Watch is a more than solid second option while awaiting Looper's release this coming weekend.

Welcome to Dragon Training

It's got to be tough being DreamWorks sometimes. Even though the animation company, launched in 1999 by Steven Speilberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, launched an award-winning, worldwide cultural phenomena with Shrek in 2001, it has been overshadowed by rival Pixar for what feels like forever. Since animated films were finally given their allotted due with the Academy Award for Best Animated being introduced in 2001, DreamWorks has won the award only twice: for Shrek in 2001, and for the stop-motion Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005. Pixar, meanwhile, has tasted success five times with Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008) and Up (2009), cementing their place as the more celebrated animation studio. And of the two studios, Pixar also has the only film that has broken the one BILLION dollar mark for gross, with this year's Toy Story 3. But give DreamWorks credit: they never give up and released three 3D animated films this year in Shrek Forever After, the recently-released Megamind, and the one that might be up for some awards at year's end, How to Train Your Dragon.

...And THAT'S how you train a dragon

Based on the fictional children's books by Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon takes place in the Viking island of Berk, where the local populace is tormented by a particular variety of pest. Dragons roam the area, stealing livestock (or anything appropriately food-like) from the villagers, who in turn attempt to capture and kill the invaders. Nobody knows where the dragons attack from, and the leader of the Vikings, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler) often leads his warriors in raids on the fog-shrouded dragon territory, usually resulting in disaster. The story focuses on Stoick's son Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), and undersized boy with a penchant for clumsiness and not at all cut out for fighting dragons, much to the embarrassment of his father. He is also the object of scorn from the other young people in the settlement, all looking to become hunters in their own right, especially Astrid (America Ferrera), the girl Hiccup pines over. Hiccup's helplessness reverses when he somehow befriends an injured dragon that he names Toothless, helping the creature re-learn to fly and the two fast becoming best friends. However, it's only a matter of time before he can keep this secret friendship hidden from a society that hates dragons with a burning passion.

The fire effects are especially eye-popping

I'd been trying to get this film for a while now, all the rental places had been out for weeks and it was becoming less and less likely I'd see it before my interest ran out. I had pretty much passed it over when the film was released in March, and only witnessing lavish praise heaped upon it for months after it's release made me think that perhaps I should sit down and watch this. I'm usually not immediately on-board with animated films, even those which have gotten gross recognition. I didn't see last year's Up in theaters, though when I finally got around to seeing it, the film became one of my favorite films of the past decade. I've never seen a Shrek film. I watched Toy Story on TV, but never saw the second, which many hailed as being better than the first. The Incredibles I rented on DVD. I still haven't seen WALL-E or Ratatouille. Despite how much I invariably enjoy animated films, I almost always overlook them when they come out in theaters in favor of other, live-action titles. Maybe some part of me thinks they're for kids? The best animated films can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike, and How to Train Your Dragon is no exception.

...Aaand so are the atmospheric effects

The film is somewhat of a retelling of the classic "boy and his dog" archetype; Hiccup must hide his pet/friend from his father lest there be consequences. That the film does this while incorporating breathtaking visuals and dragon fights is a bonus, and the film is worth watching for it's beautifully-rendered backgrounds and settings alone. And yet it still comes back to the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless, as well as that between Hiccup and his father, that drives the story forward.

Hiccup attempts to protect Old Yeller... I mean Toothless

The voice acting is especially good, even if you take umbrage with Norse warriors being depicted with the Scottish voices of Butler, Colin Ferguson and David Tennant. Butler especially is noticeable in his performance as the great warrior of the village of Berk. He varies between strong warrior and frustrated father with ease. The only unfortunate thing is that he's so recognizable (and he was the only one I KNEW was in the cast before I watched it) that it breaks the suspension of disbelief, with my mind telling me that this was Butler, not Stoick. Ferguson I recognized - though could not name - and enjoyed as Stoick's friend and Hiccup's mentor Gobber the Belch. From his portrayal of the Viking handicapped by years of battle with the dragons, Ferguson conveys a respect for the character inherent in being the buffer between father and son. He does all he can to help Hiccup and persuading Stoick to give his son a chance. America Ferrera does a great job as Astrid, a powerful young warrior who eventually learns to like Hiccup. Though not given a lot to do for the film's first half, she makes it work when it's her time to shine. Other youths take a part of the story, but they don't have a lot to do with the time they're given. That they're so good helps, however, especially T.J. Miller and Kristen Wiig as rival fraternal twins. Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse are also great in limited roles, adding humor and character in small doses to the audience. The only actor who might be considered a disappointment would be Baruchel, whose voice seems to sometimes be perfect to the dialogue he's given, while other times seeming completely out of place. His is a small quibble within a sea of talented voice actors, but since he's the main character it is possible to be sick of hearing his voice by the end.

Like most animated films, human character are just a LITTLE off

The film only has one additional problem in my opinion, and it's with the film's animation style, especially those of the dragons we see during the film. While the backgrounds and distance shots are all beautiful, the movements of the dragons, especially the big ones, see a bit clunky and not nearly as smoothly animated as the rest of the film. While even the human characters stand out a little from the settings they're plunked in, the dragons are even MORE removed, making them seem out of place and almost hokey. Well, okay, Toothless is fine, but I suspect only because the animators put so much more work into him to make it work for the viewer.

Uhm, sure, you can be there for the sequel...

In the end, I'm not even sure How to Train Your Dragon will be remembered as the best ANIMATED film this year, as opposed to some who would seem to think it deserves discussion as best film this year. It certainly deserves a spot on my Top 10 Movies of the Year, but at #9 I wouldn't count on it staying there too long. I really enjoyed this film for it's amazing art and animation, even if the dragons weren't too well incorporated. A little character development would have gone a long way, but I can't complain about a film that was feel-good from beginning to end and succeeded in transporting me to a world where Vikings and dragons co-exist in such an awesome way..If you haven't seen it yet, do so now.