They’re blue.  They’re three apples high.  And admit it, you probably have a few of the tiny plastic paeans to their awesomeness tucked away in boxes somewhere in your parent’s house.  Probably in your old room, which is now the “yoga studio”.  Yep, you guessed it; la la la la-la la, la la la-la la, The Smurfs are baaaack.  And this time they’re goin’ live, in NYC.  Well, kinda live.  Live-ish?  No matter how you Smurf it, it’s a whole lot of fun.

If you’re thinking to yourself that there’s no Smurfing way in Smurf that you’d see this Smurfin’ film?  Two things: one, it’s an adorable film that re-works the little blue guys (and gal) much the same way The Brady Bunch Movie successfully brought that series into the present day.  And two, there’s no need for that kind of language.  Seriously, that’s just rude.

The story is pretty simple.  It’s time for the Blue Moon Festival in Smurf Village.  As usual, the evil wizard Gargamel is up to his old “gotta get the Smurfs” tricks.  Before you know it, a vortex opens…and five of the Smurfs, plus Smurfette, Gargamel and Gargamel’s sidekick/familiar Azrael are dropped into the magical land known as New York’s Central Park.  While Gargamel tries to figure out how to work the new world to his advantage, all the Smurfs want to do is get back home.  And they’re hoping their newfound human pal Patrick Winslow is up to the task.  Y’know, once he gets over the whole Smurf thing.

The one and only Neil Patrick Harris (what?  I don’t play favorites.  Not at all.) plays Patrick Winslow, a New York marketing exec that is about to get the opportunity of a lifetime at the cosmetics company where he works.  But Patrick has a heart of gold behind that snazzy suit, and he soon gets into the Smurfy spirit of things.  Jayma Mays (Glee), as Patrick’s wife Grace Winslow, is so gosh-darn cute as a mommy-to-be that she’s about as close to a human Smurfette that anyone can get without being blue.  I wanted to be sick to death of the cuteness, I thought it would be overkill, but it’s not.  Really, it just reads as ol’ fashioned adorable, which blends in to the overall vibe of the movie perfectly.  They keep Mays fresh-faced and a bit boho in this film, so although die-hard Gleeks may still see her as Emma Pillsbury, it’s also easy to just lose yourself in Grace’s easygoing charm.  The scene where the Smurfs try to evade Gargamel in FAO Schwartz could be just too much slapstick, but Mays and NPH pull things back to earth while still keeping it light and fun.

Hank Azria, the hardest workin’ well known character actor out there, pulls out all the stops as Gargamel.  He’s almost unrecognizable under all that latex, but his love of an oddball character shines through.  And Sofia Vergara small role as Patrick’s borderline nutso boss Odile, proves that her run on Modern Family ain’t no fluke.

Kids will love watching the Smurfs wander around NYC in their usual style, while folks over three apples high will like the sly nods to the people with driver’s licenses in the theater.  Smurfette gets to pull a Marilyn Monroe with — gasp! — a new dress, and helps Patrick come up with ad ideas by saying “I kissed a Smurf, and I liked it!” (a tip of the hat to Katy Perry, who does an admirable and cute as heck  job voicing Smurfette).  George Lopez voices Grouchy Smurf with more than a whiff of Lopez’s trademark humor.  And with Alan Cummings voicing Gutsy Smurf, you know there’s a whole lot of double entendres just waiting to happen.

The CGI was sharp and clear, with the Smurfs in about as realistic a look as little blue people can get.  And definitely pony up for the 3D for this one.  The Smurfs is one of the new crop of 3D films that took the time to care about this improved medium, and here it adds to the beauty of the film, and to the action sequences in the story.  The live action/CGI blend works amazingly well; I couldn’t help but think about Who Framed Roger Rabbit’s live action’/animation blend.  The Smurfs is the first movie since then to merge the two worlds and create a fun, lively, believable whole.

The only thing I wasn’t 100% Smurfy with was the Azrael abuse.  Yes, he usually got his fuzzy little butt handed to him in each Saturday morning episode.  But with a real-life cat playing most of the scenes (and the CGI cat looking so lifelike), I had a hard time laughing, and spent more time worrying about the kids that would go home after the movie and try it out on their own puss.  But I took a deep breath and hoped that parents would sit they’re young’uns down and discuss Reality vs. The Movies.

So what the Smurf are you waiting for?  Oh sorry, didn’t mean to work blue.  Just head out to see The Smurfs, and have a Smurfy good time.  Maybe it’ll get your mind off of how much those old figurines are worth now, if you could only find ‘em.

With Tangled, Disney returns to its roots with a story of a traditional princess, a reluctant hero, and a wicked witch and although many are tired of this old formula, if anyone can do it right it’s Disney.

Tangled is the classic story of Rapunzel with, of course, a twist. You know, there’s a princess kept in a tower by an evil enchantress who uses her long hair to gain access. One day, a young man runs into her and they set off to find her true parents. There’s magic, adventure, and a nice love story. We’ve all seen this plot before, but here it feels natural and has enough new elements to keep even the most experiences movie-watcher entertained.

First of all, the film looks great. Here, Disney Animation Studios doesn’t try to emulate Pixar, but attempts to imbue this computer-animated film with the magic of their classically animated fairy tales. The entire movie, from the design of the characters to the way the world looks, just feels right. At no point are you left wishing that the film was traditionally-animated. Each medium has its own advantages and disadvantages, and Disney is really starting to see that distinction. This story works with computer animation. The animation in Tangled is vibrant, cartoonish (as in, not too realistic), and fun.

The film is also presented in 3D, which I am not a fan of. Still, the financial benefits at this point all but guarantee that we will have to deal with many more films in three dimensions during the foreseeable future. As with any computer-animated film, the 3D effects work better here than they would in live-action. And while most of the time, the 3D did not add anything to the film, there were occasions where the effect was actually visually interesting. So while I think overall 3D is not worth it, there are sequences, most notably the latern-releasing scene, in which the 3D visuals enhance the film.

The comedy is also spot-on. Kids will find it extremely entertaining, but adults will also find themselves laughing. This is due to the fact that the movie is genuinely funny. It doesn’t rely on cheap jokes, potty humor, or innuendo but instead uses physical comedy and legitimately hilarious moments to be a surprisingly funny movie.

But what really marks this as a high point in Disney’s recent history is its heart. The movie feels like it should. The characters are warm and familiar, the story is magical, the visuals are, as I’ve mentioned, great, and you are emotionally invested in the film. At the beginnning of the movie, I was not impressed, but as the movie went on I found myself more and more invested in the characters and what happens to them. In fact, the finale of the film packs a significant emotional punch, despite the fact that you know that everything is going to be okay in the end.

So while Tangled is definitely no Beauty and the Beast or Lion King, it is definitely a return to form for Disney. The story is fun, you fall in love with the characters, the visuals are breathtaking, real emotions are involved, and the film is pure fun for all ages.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Illumination’s Despicable Me is a wholly enjoyable foray into the same family friendly animation sandbox that Pixar usually plays in. It’s a testament to both Carell’s voice-acting and the gifted work of the art team that Despicable casts off the moniker of rip-off and begins to ascend to the status of equal. It never quite gets there, trading in its frantic, comic set-pieces for some unsuccessful sentiment a bit too soon, but this will do nicely as a fine debut for the fledgling animation studio. 

Carell is voicing the evil super-villain Gru, who yearns more for the status of world’s greatest baddie than he does for any real gleeful destruction.  Toiling for years in relative obscurity (in the basement of his mom’s house no less), always one step away from taking the crown, he’s finally got a plan, hatched with the help of his senile and hilarious inventor, Dr. Nefario and an army of yellow glove-people known only as ‘minions’. Using a shrink ray, Gru plans to steal the moon itself, ambitious even for one so satirically carved from the Bond-esque mold of megalomania. Unfortunately for Gru, the dorky but scheming Vector—his primary competition–steals the weapon and with it all of the ‘old guy’s’ thunder.

Up until this point, the film is soaring along as a kind of milder version of the old Mad Magazine comic strip, Spy Vs. Spy, replacing the more violent bits with a wonderfully playful wit. Julie Andrews voices Gru’s mother, and some of her lines, although hurtful in the context of the story (yes, it has a story!), are both acerbic and hilarious. The artists make Gru a kind of stilt-legged penguin, like the deranged parody of a Batman villain, and the soft-edged, colorful animation technique brings him to a fluid life that works for the bursting personality Carell has prepared for him. Jason Segal skirts the edge of annoyance as Vector, but he’s throwing himself into this so completely, that by the close, he had really grown on me. Extra points for Russell Brand’s Q-like inventor, who’s hitting the comedy button better and more often than Brand’s live-action persona did in the more adult Get Him To The Greek.

Not only borrowing the vibrant and crisp visual palette of a Pixar film, Despicable Me also attempts to duplicate the story depth and emotional heart that many associate with that other studio. For the most part, they succeed, giving Gru more complexity than we could expect or even conceive of, given the basic premise. What doesn’t work so well are the three young orphan girls that enter the story at mid-point. For narrative purposes, this happens because Gru needs some unsuspecting innocents to infiltrate Vector’s home and steal back the shrink ray. Their manifest cuteness and the resulting impact it has on Gru’s soul happens because the movie needs to get away with having a super-villain as the central character in a family film.

The catalyst for Gru’s eventual and obvious conversion, including an in-road to deal with his monster mommy issues, the three young girls are carbon copies of precocious children that would pop up in a lesser animated picture. They don’t capsize the movie, and they give Carrell’s zaniness an opportunity to reflect a gentler, more somber side, but their presence forces Despicable Me down a less despicable path, and as it turns out, less despicable means more boring.

 Illumination nearly hits it out of the park on their first try, and they might have managed a great, nimble comedy surrounding sinister deeds and whiz-bang technology. Instead they try to force a bright concept into a dimmer screenplay than it deserves. The result is akin to almost stealing the moon; you didn’t get away with it, but it is the moon after all, and it’s a grand thing to even attempt.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Rio is a new Digital 3-D animated feature from Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age). Rio stars the voices of Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada), George Lopez (George Lopez) and Rodrigo Santoro (Love Actually). Rio combines animation and flying to maximize the 3-D format. I expect some Getz, Gilberto & Gilberto (can somebody say “Ipanema?”) on the soundtrack. Call it early but I think I’ve found what I’ll be doing Good Friday Easter weekend 2011 (Rio is set to release Easter April 2011). As you will see in the trailer the basic story is of a macaw that has lived its whole life in a cage “with a mirror and a bell” and never learning how to fly. He will learn to fly in Rio. So what do you think of Rio? How do you feel about 3-D? Better question: what do your kids think of this trailer? I know I’ll be taking my nieces and nephew to see Rio!

DreamWorks Animation has announced that a sequel to the smash hit How to Train Your Dragon has been planned for release in 2013. There is no word yet on whether or not the sequel will be in 3-D, but that will probably be the case.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, says How to Train Your Dragon has become the company’s next franchise, bringing in almost $375 million dollars worldwide so far at the box office. It even took the top spot in the box office during its fifth weekend in theaters, which is not something that is seen very often.

DreamWorks is in need of a new franchise, as the final chapter of the Shrek franchise, Shrek: Forever After is released in theaters next month.

How to Train Your Dragon may have brought audiences into theaters by jumping onto the 3-D bandwagon, but it seems to have worked. It also excelled in the box office because the movie is actually good, receiving great reviews including an unheard of score of 98% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Many other projects are in the works, including a live arena show similar to Walking with Dinosaurs, a TV series in development, and an online virtual world based on the location of the movie.

Cressida Cowell, the Scottish author who wrote the book the movie is based on, says that DreamWorks bought the rights to all ten books within the series before the first movie was released in theaters.

Principal photography for The Smurfs kicked off on March 26 in New York. The film, based on the long-running cartoon franchise, is a mixture of animation and live-action.

In the Smurfs’ first adventure on the big screen, they are chased out of their village by the treacherous Gargamel and are transported into the middle of central park.

The movie stars Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays as a couple whose lives are turned upside down when they encounter the little blue guys. The Smurfs are voiced by a fantastic cast that includes Anton Yelchin as Clumsy Smurf, Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Katy Perry as Smurfette, Alan Cumming as Gutsy Smurf, Fred Armisen as Brainy Smurf, and George Lopez as Grouchy Smurf. The cast is rounded off with Hank Azaria playing the evil wizard Gargamel.

In the director’s chair is Raja Gosnell whose previous filmography includes Home Alone 3, Scooby-Doo, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua with Jordan Kerner producing a script by J. David Stem & David N. Weiss and Jay Scherick & David Ronn. The story was written with the approval of Veronique Culliford, Smurf creator Peyo’s daughter.

Out of love for the series, I have to say that this still seems like a formulaic, uninteresting version of numerous other family films out there today. However, I still have hope that the talent involved can make this a fun new Smurfs adventure.

The Smurfs, a joint production of Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation, is due to be released in 3D August 3, 2011.

Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon is a great example of everything I love about animated movies. It’s a big, bold, colorful movie that isn’t afraid to blend stylized characters with exquisitely real and breathtaking details.

 Unlike the recent slate of warmed-over kid’s film trying to compete furiously to cash-in on the 3D technology, Dragon swoops in, gathers the technique under its wing and folds it confidently into the final product in such a way that what ends up on screen is just as compelling and exciting as the images that James Cameron brought us in Avatar. The big surprise at the heart of Dragon? It wipes the floor with Avatar in the story/narrative department.

Adapted from the novels by Cressida Cowell, Dragon re-imagines the world of the book slightly to create a land of danger and peril, with hearty, rugged Vikings doing battle with the large, scaly pests of their age; dragons. Right from the outset, the audience is introduced to young Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), a dubious Viking lad who doesn’t have any of the fierce swagger, motley spirit or physical imposition that everyone, including the women of his clan, possess. Hiccup serves as narrator and protagonist, and in a stunning and clever opening sequence we are introduced to his village, his blustery father, Stoick the Vast, and the numerous species of dragon that terrorize their land.

In his world, Hiccup has been taught that killing dragons is one of the greatest feats a Viking can achieve. They are monstrous pests that steal livestock and burn homes, and the whole village has based its social system around their ability to slay them. There are even dragon slaying schools, one of which Hiccup attends when Gobber, the class instructor, coerces Stoick to let him join. His classmates are all true blue Viking whelps who take the slaying seriously, but Hiccup can barely lift a shield.

Among these warrior adolescents is Astrid (America Ferrera) who is far more gifted and fetching in Hiccup’s eyes than her posse, comprised of Snotlout, Fish Legs and the bickering twins, Tuffnut and Ruffnut. When he does manage to capture a dragon, using his own ingenuity, it turns out to be a Night Fury, the most fearsome and secretive of all the species. When it comes to time to kill the beast, Hiccup can’t do it and so he frees the creature, it doesn’t immediately eat him, and a friendship is born.  

The dragon, nicknamed Toothless, is a beguiling and endearing creation. Hiccup mostly observes him at first, from a distance, and eventually realizes the animal has a broken tail wing, which prevents him from leaving the valley. Toothless isn’t a giant, leather-winged monstrosity but rather he’s lithe and catlike, part salamander and part panther, with big yellow eyes and a wide mouth that curiously turns upwards in a snickering smile.

In a wonderful melding of the computer animation and classic cartoon styling, Toothless is both an exaggerated character and a visually realistic one. When he’s running around the valley and standing on his hind legs staring at Hiccup he resembles Stitch, the alien visitor from Sanders and Dublois last film. But when Hiccup is riding on his back, or running his hands across Toothless’ scales, we could be looking at a photographic image, so great is the clarity and detail.

The film works as well as it does, though, not just because of the visual elements but because of the story, which brings the Hiccup and Toothless relationship to the forefront, and forces Hiccup to follow his own instincts regarding right and wrong as opposed to the perceptions of his village. Sanders and Dublois have a strong and sincere handle on odd partnerships in fantasy films. They ran a wickedly comic spin on E.T. in Lilo and Stitch, with a young girl befriending a horribly destructive menace from space and here they evoke the wild wonder of connecting with a force of nature.

I was reminded of the touching relationship between the boy and his horse in The Black Stallion. When Hiccup rides Toothless for the first time, it’s a moment of staggering beauty and visceral excitement, but also one of emotional connection. This aspect energizes and amplifies everything else that happens.

Without giving away the rest of the story, I will say that How To Train Your Dragon hasn’t been conceived as a  tepid kid’s flick or as a joke factory disguised as a fantasy movie. It takes the story it is telling seriously, and the world it presents is a dangerous and formidable one, with all of the teeth left in but never too scary or threatening that little ones can’t participate.

There is a confidence in the work here that is reminiscent of films like The Never Ending Story or, as I said before, Star Wars. The final battle that closes the movie, with dragons soaring frantically through the air, combating a larger more fearsome menace is easily comparable to the assault on the Death Star at the end of A New Hope. There is a unfettered sense of imagination employed here, and although it never hesitates to have fun with the concept, Dragon never disrespects its characters or its audience.

In regards to the characters, Toothless was easily my favorite, but I was also won over by Butler as Stoick the Vast. It is unusual in films of this type for the animation and the voice work to mesh so completely that we buy the character as something more than a ‘cartoon’. Butler imbues Stoick’s Asterisk build and big bushy beard with enough soul and Viking spirit, that even as his bulk is overpowering the film’s frame, his interior is revealing softer, nobler compartments that his son has barely guessed at. It’s amazing and often subtle work, and it echoes the approach taken with the 3D.

Aside from Avatar, this is one of the first times I can wholeheartedly recommend the 3D experience over a 2D one. Although never flashy, Dragon really mines the technology for big thrills, daredevil action sequences and yet reserves the most startling effects for very small, throwaway moments. There is a scene where ash is falling like snow from the sky, and it could very well be blanketing the seats in the theater. It is impressive and never draws attention away from the story.

How To Train Your Dragon is one of those welcome and joyful discoveries that we don’t get often enough; a satisfying and endearing adventure that brings its audience, both young and old, together. It imagines a world that will be worth returning to, over and over, for years to come.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

From macho Spartan warriors to conflicted superheroes to… heroic barn owls? Really Zack?

Based off a collection of popular children’s books called The Guardians of Ga’hoole, this actually looks like a mash-up of 300 and Watership Down, except with owls of course. The imagery of the owls soaring and the idea of giving the standard quest film a makeover with these wooly birds is actually appealing. Just ignore the horrid pop song in the trailer and you will be fine.

Snyder has a good handle on visual style, but both of his last films fell flat for me outside of the first viewing. This one looks like it might hearken back to the days of Secret of Nimh and the like. I’m digging the flying effects and after just seeing How To Train Your Dragon in 3D, I admit that the format is perfect for animated films like that want to capture a sense of something thrilling like flight.

Guardians releases in September and has just landed on my list of anticipated movies. What do you think of it?