Entertaining, fast and effective, Firebreather turns out to be a Incredible's wanna-be for all of us who enjoyed the great superhero family-saga, as we are desperately waiting for a sequel. Though Firebreather isn't that sequel, it gives a taste of what could be. Of course there is the budget question, The Incredibles were made with some 92M$ for the big screen, what the little descendant took on expenses we can only assume...maybe 5-8 M$ ?
Well, it doesn't look cheap, on the contrary, the last 7 years in computer progress enabled CGI artists to produce good-looking 3d animations for a fraction of their previous cost. And this movie is an impressive showcase for decent Cartoon Networks's production abilities. If this is what we have to expect in the future, I appreciate that.
What Firebreather lacks, compared with the big predecessor, is story innovation and likable characters, its a mixture of the Movies mentioned in my Headline:
The Incredibles for some kind of family issues, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for some CGI gymnastics and the town environment, How to Train your dragon for the father/son relationship and action movements, and Godzilla for the size and speed of the monsters.
Of all comics out there - and there are many good comics - I would not expect Firebreather to manage coming to cinematic life, and the second lack is that this Comic is not exactly well-known all over the world, so it left me a bit alone puzzling about the world it takes action in. It's a bit like these Manga stories which are about a future not too far, but far enough from us for energy weapons and other gadgets, and near enough to show a very current non-changed school system. People in this world are actually afraid of those huge Kajin Dragons, but not so much that they would talk about them all the time, so, maybe they became familiar with those violent beasts.
OK, one day, 16 years ago during a war between dragons and humans, our Hero's Mother rescued a complete town by facing the King of the Kaju (not exactly Japanese, but likely) Dragons, and while she faced him, they fell both in love and the result is their son, Duncan. It seems that the 300 ft father was not really the family guy type of a father, so he may have been disappeared for political reasons, and left the mother with their son alone. Only to come 16 years later and to ruin his son's poor attempts to find a place in his new high school. It turns out that the father has some plans for his half bread descendant, and Duncan has to fight against his father's will, his nature, other Kajun and, important enough, Highschool ignorance.
These are the provisions, and the movies tries hard to add some humor and to be be all things to everyone, but in some cases it fails. For example, when a 300 ft Dragon mates with a 5 ft woman, what's like it ? - There's a little funny dialog, where Duncan's mother does want to reveal details about that, but Duncan disagrees about the necessity. So we don't hear anything about intercourse between Dragon and humans, let alone DNA compatibility. It remains a magic secret.
Besides the few minor glitches the movie is absolutely watchable, full of amazingly nice rendered action and never boring, it tries even to bring in some new insights, like killing your enemies may not be the wisest decision. All things considered - well done.
