Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning and welcome back to another episode of movie deputy Reviews. And if it's not morning where you're at, I hope you are just having a fabulous day. Some of my listeners have been going, you know, when we listen to your show, it's not always morning when we're listening, but it's morning when I'm recording these because usually I record these before the sun is even up for the day. So my apologies on that. But I just want to say greetings and welcome back. I hope I didn't blindside you too badly with my review of challengers yesterday. Forget the pause here. It just started hailing outside really bad. And so I'm just like going, oh, my word.
[00:00:37] But sorry, that just kind of derailed my brain there for a second. But today we are going to be talking about another movie that opened up this weekend. I know challengers didn't open up this weekend. And of course, we've got some, a bunch of other big titles that I'm going to be talking to you very soon. But the one we are talking about today is called dragon keeper. Now this one has a lot of promise. And I did not know anything at all about this going into it. All I knew is it was had a picture of a girl and a picture of a dragon and that basically it was a cartoon. And that's in English. That's literally the extent that I knew of the movie prior to watching it. So I really went into this with just a blank slate. I didn't watch any of the previews or trailers or anything on this. So I was just like, okay, this looks like a cute movie. And I am happy to say that, surprisingly, it was. I am also happy to say that I gave this movie, dragon Keeper, an innocent rating on that. And I will get to what I gave it on the deputy scale here just shortly.
[00:01:44] I'm always just like trying to scramble for candy, and I love the selections of the candy and stuff that they have at the theaters nowadays, especially the Mars brand family of candies and just some of the goodies that you can find. It's like the prices are a little scary, honestly, concessions. But what a lot of people don't realize, and yes, I'm going to get back to the movie here for just a second. Is that a lot of theaters? This isn't every theater. It's not just a blanket, just a cross the board thing. But averagely, movie theaters only make about 5% off the tickets, so all of their profit basically comes from concessions. Now, am I justifying the fact that it costs more than $20 for a large pop and a large popcorn. No, that's. I mean, prices are ridiculous. And fortunately, I don't like popcorn. I've got to be the weirdest movie critic in history. I cannot stand popcorn. I do like caramel corn. That's an exception. I do like caramel corn. But regular popcorn, just the smell of it is near nauseating at times. Once in a great while, I will indulge. And it's like I always ask myself, when I'm done with that, it's like, oh, why did I do that, though? I have learned that those little Parmesan packets that a lot of the movie theaters and stuff have. That have restaurants. If you take your bag of popcorn and you put some Parmesan packets in on it, it does help, especially if you're not a big fan of popcorn. That does definitely help the matter. But now, getting back to the movie, I'm not actually promoting any of the theaters. It's like, I go to Marcus, I go to AMC, Cinemark Cineplex, Regal, you name it. I have been to them, and I have good experiences at all of them and bad, but I mean primarily good by far over all of them. But back to the movie with Dragon Keeper. We meet in the very beginning part of the movie. You see this baby being abandoned, this little baby girl, and you think it's a girl. You don't realize that's a girl till a little bit later on in the movie. But her name is Ping, and she's abandoned, and she has this, like, weird ability, but nobody can really explain what it is. And because it's that, but that's why she's being abandoned. Well, the people that find her take her, and they're not really happy to have her either. She basically becomes a chinese slave for the emperor and just kind of doing all these things. And one of the jobs that they have to do is to feed the dragons, and she's too young to participate, but her grandmama that has raised her just is no longer able to do it physically. And so ping steps up and tries to help. Well, it's her first introduction to the dragons, and she realizes that there's something very special about her when she's around these dragons and she has this little mouse friend, and it's just. It plays along so innocently. But then you realize the reason the emperor wants these dragons is it's almost like a throwback to, like, Pete's dragon, where they have the.
[00:04:36] All the different dragon parts and their cures and how much money they can make off of it. Basically, that's what the emperor is doing with these dragons is he is harvesting parts from them. And of course, you don't see that part of it, but you just, they're talking about it. And because the dragon population is getting less and less, the emperor and his people are after what they call the pearl of longevity. It gives them the hope of immortality and things like that. But what they don't realize is that this pearl is not a pearl, it's an egg. And that's going to be Ping's responsibility to protect that egg and help do it knit. I cannot talk. Do what's necessary to hatch it. So, and this whole thing is this whole story, and it's just, it's a little bit intense at times, but not too much so that it would be too much for a younger audience.
[00:05:31] And it's just that it's graphically beautiful. I normally don't focus on that, but this was just extraordinarily beautifully done. And I couldn't help but think of, like, it's like, okay, this part of the story reminds me of this. This part reminds me of that.
[00:05:47] So if you have ever been a fan of Mulan, of the neverending story of, like, the Hobbit movies or the Lord of the Rings movie, the ones that deal with smog, smaug, however you pronounce it, how to train your dragon, of course, and Game of Thrones. There are, there's subtle references to each of these in this movie. Not directly, but they're, like I said, they're subtle references that they're playing off on those. And it really kind of brings it full circle with the, with the story from, like, the questioning of who this baby was in the beginning to what her destiny is at the very end. And I, for one, hope this is not the last that we see of Ping and her adventures with Kai and with some of the other dragons that are involved in this story.
[00:06:38] It is.
[00:06:39] I, this is, oh, okay. Like, when we saw how to train your dragon, we first got that first movie and we got the taste and we're like, okay, we hope they continue. And obviously they went forward with that for a few more movies.
[00:06:52] This kind of has that same type of feeling to it, of the same emotional investment into the story and, and into the characters. And that's why, score wise on the deputy scale, I'm like, okay, it's a good story. It's memorable. There's some flaws, but nothing like, oh, I mean, okay, for me, personally, as a critic, I mean. Cause I pay attention to those fine details. You've got these amazing graphics on the forefront, and then in the background, it almost looks like a Bob Ross painting. It's like two different types of media. And for me, that was a little distracting at times. So that's one of the reasons I didn't give this a higher score. But like I said, a lot of people aren't going to notice stuff like that. And that doesn't take away from the story. It's just for me personally, when I'm paying attention to it, that can be kind of distracting. The score wise on Dragon Keeper. I am giving Dragon Keeper a 6.25 out of ten on the deputy scale.
[00:07:50] Now, that's actually a pretty good rating, especially for an animated movie. I've had very few animated movies ever get anything seven or higher. And a lot of them end up in the fours and fives just because even if they're good, they're just there. They're not something that stands out and go and grabs your attention or holds your attention or makes you want more.
[00:08:12] This one really does this. So I'm, like I said, I'm really hoping that. I know this was a like a b list movie. It's not one that's even getting a lot of fanfare with Hollywood. And that's almost what makes it more appealing. So if you have a chance to see this, whether it be while it's in the theaters or when it comes out on instant video or any of those, be sure to check this one out there. Like I said, there is just something special here. And I'm hoping that we see more of this.
[00:08:38] Well, this is, of course, our special Sunday broadcast. As I missed Friday. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another episode of movie deputy reviews. And of course, you know which buttons to push. You always get the latest and greatest movie deputy content. And I absolutely love this and I hope that you guys do too. But I will talk to you soon. Bye.
