Dreamer (2005)

Dreamer is a standard live-action Disney movie that just happens not to actually come from Disney. There isn't one unpredictable moment in it, the music from John Debney keeps reminding viewers that it's all meaningful and life-affirming, and many scenes are shot with an added, warming glow suffusing each frame. Despite these marks against it, I ended up enjoying Dreamer, thanks mainly to a great cast giving decent performances. Sometimes familiarity doesn't breed contempt, sometimes it's just comfortable. Dreamer is just that, a comfort movie. I may not rush to revisit it, but I admit that I enjoyed it while it was on.

Inspired by a true story, Dreamer is all about a horse named Sonador that falls during a big race and sustains what should be a career-ending injury. Horse trainer Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) is angry at the employer (David Morse) who ignored his advice not to race the horse. With his daughter, Cale (Dakota Fanning), by his side, he ends up leaving the stables with the horse, a reduced cash amount for his work and no job. He also has his assistants, Balon (Luis Guzman) and ex-jockey Manolin (Freddy Rodriguez), and a plan to help Sondaor get well enough so that she can at least be used for breeding, even if she will never race again. But Sonador has a strong spirit, as does young Cale, and looks like she may want to race. That will take hard work and money. The hard work isn't a problem, but the money just might not be available.

Written and directed by John Gatins, Dreamer doesn't really have any major flaws apart from the sentimentality and predictability of it all. It's a nice film, probably too nice for many people to be able to stomach.

The big plus point for the film is the cast. Russell puts in another great performance as a decent everyman, Fanning does her usual good work in another film made during the peak of her "wide-eyed years" and the ever-dependable David Morse is as dependable as ever, despite being saddled with (no pun intended) the role of main villain. Guzman and Rodriguez are both a lot of fun, Elizabeth Shue is fine as Ben's wife/Cale's mother and Kris Kristofferson hangs about to be Ben's grumpy father, who may or may not help out and reforge a bond with his son. And then there's Oded Fehr, appearing about 70 minutes into the movie and getting a few minutes of screentime as a character who may as well have been named "plot device #3".

Cynical people should look for hundreds of films that they will prefer to watch before this one, but anyone who can handle the sugar content should find this moderately enjoyable. It's certainly a decent enough family movie so maybe keep it on standby for any time you may have a 7-12 year old in your home.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreamer-DVD-Dakota-Fanning/dp/B000CSTIIA/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1368707710&sr=1-1&keywords=dreamer

Hybrid (2010)

Killer cars. They've appeared in movies before and they're often a lot of fun. Sometimes they're driven by a killer driver and sometimes they're just evil machines that can drive themselves around. Personally, I think that Christine remains at the top of the pile in this particular subgenre so that's the movie that newcomers have to get close to. I won't beat around the bush here, Hybrid doesn't come close enough. It's not terrible but it stays just below average throughout.

The basic premise is a good one - a killer car. Only this isn't actually a car. It's something else, something that can imitate numerous vehicles in a way that helps it to catch food. And when I say food I mean people. After a bit of a smash up the car ends up in a garage and it's not long until those working in the garage start to realise that something is up. Unfortunately, by the time the full extent of the danger that they're in hits them it's too late for them to leave. They are, in fact, trapped.

Well, when I say that they're trapped I actually mean that the audience is supposed to believe that they're trapped. Being in a big, multi-level garage doesn't exactly help to make the movie claustrophobic and tense. It's not even an underground garage like the one in the enjoyable P2. And then there's the fact that the reason everyone is trapped inside is because the boss man (Oded Fehr) is a big asshole, the kind of guy who gets his emergency exits welded shut to stop break-ins.

Fairly capably directed by Eric Valette, Hybrid suffers most of all from a pretty weak script by Benjamin Carr being handled by a fairly weak cast. Not everyone is bad, mind you, but Fehr is stuck with such a bad character that it's impossible to warm to him (which is fine and dandy sometimes but just doesn't work for this movie) and Ryan Kennedy is sadly underused. The lead actress, Shannon Beckner playing Tilda, just isn't very good. I'm sorry to say it, she may be a lovely person in real life, but she simply doesn't cut it in this role. She puts up with too much crap from others, making her hard to like, and then when she finally becomes assertive and develops into the potential heroine of the piece . . . . . . . . . it's not only unbelievable but it's also a case of too little too late.

There are some good ideas here though. That enjoyable premise is fun and the fact that the car isn't really a car allows for some successful "car sneaking up on someone" scenes that usually irritate me so much (yep, despite my ability to suspend disbelief for most things I have some pet peeves and "the superquiet vehicle that nobody notices until it screeches and/or makes an impact" is one of them). It's a shame that there wasn't much else in the movie to make it worthwhile, one or two decent moments aside. Even the CGI disappoints when it is needed most.

With a bit of tweaking here and there and some more money available, this could have been a very enjoyable film. As it stands, it's stuck just below average but the director is someone to keep an eye on (as fans of his 2002 film, Malefique, already knew).

4/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hybrid-3D-Blu-ray/dp/B004L5UINE/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1348212770&sr=1-2