'How to Train Your Dragon' to set theatres on fire

By Sarah Sluis

With 4,055 theatres, over half of them 3D, and a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, How To Train Your Dragon is poised for a fantastic opening weekend. The animated fantasy's overwhelmingly positive critical reception puts it among the ranks of Pixar, the perennial winner for Best Animated Film at the Oscars. Our critic Frank Lovece called the DreamWorks Animation film "a masterpiece of art direction and design, with some of the most beautiful landscapes ever animated and state-of-the-art rendering of things like strands of Hiccup's [the hero] hair during flight." Releasing in 3D and IMAX, the movie will enchant young audiences and the adults going along for the ride. Because it's based on a novel, the movie will have added anticipation and awareness and should open extremely strong. However, unlike Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, this movie's appeal will be more family-based, and is unlikely to draw in as many viewers coming without a child in tow.

The stupid comedy du jour, Hot Tub Time Machine (2,754 theatres), is supposedly a little better than average. Like its summer cousin The Hangover, an older cast but more juvenile jokes should expand the potential audience. Our critic Ethan Alter enjoyed the comedy's "welcomingly weirder sense of humor" but predicted it won't have the same cultural staying power as '80s classics like Caddyshack.

On the specialty front, director Atom Egoyan's "sexually charged melodrama" Chloe opens in 306 theatres. The subject matter should draw audiences, as will star Amanda Seyfried, whose performance "makes a major impression, adeptly navigating the twists and turns of her character's not-so-apparent motivations."

Disney geeks (Mousejunkies?) will drool for documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty (5 theatres), which chronicles Disney's rebirth after a period of bad films.

The Eclipse, an "intriguing mix of engaging drama and wonderful dialogue, all infused with stirring hints of the supernatural," will debut in six theatres. Award-winning playwright Conor McPherson (The Seafarer) writes and directs.

On Monday, Alice will pass the 3D crown to How to Train Your Dragon, and Hot Tub Time Machine will try its hardest to come in second.