Regarding How to Train Your Dragon

Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is not your typical Viking. He's not tall, and his arms and legs are like toothpicks. He doesn't mind so very much - except that he and his father have nothing in common and rarely talk about anything. Desperately wanting to heal this divide, Hiccup wants to kill one of the dragons that attack the village at regular intervals. But not just any dragon. He wants to kill the Night Fury dragon that no one has ever seen. When he finally lands a hit on the one that has been terrorizing the village, it crashes a distance away. No one else believes he actually hit it. Hiccup goes out to find his dragon and, if need be, finish it off. But he soon discovers a surprising truth that never occurred to him or any of the other Vikings - that dragons might not be so evil after all.

The biggest thing that jumped out at me about this movie is that it's so clean for a Dreamworks production. Based on the animated Dreamworks movies I've seen (Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and Over the Hedge) and especially on those I haven't seen (the Shrek trilogy), Dreamworks doesn't really make movies that are tiny-kid friendly. I would never let a five year-old son of mine watch Madagascar. However, How to Train Your Dragon has just one crude part, and on a scale of one to ten, it's not all that crude.

Besides being cleaner than a lot of animated movies I've seen, I also enjoyed how the dragons were portrayed more like dogs than people. Don't get me wrong; I love the mice in Cinderella. But it can get a little tiresome to have animals and people speak to each other - particularly in a world where people are pushing "animal rights." But the dragons are very definitely not able to speak. In fact, Toothless reminds me a lot of a couple different dogs I know.

This dogginess of Toothless helps make the relationship between him and Hiccup pretty real. Toothless's (sometimes) misguided attempts at trying to please Hiccup are so sweet, and Hiccup really throws himself into training and caring for his dragon. They're just a boy and his (really, really cool) pet.

Which brings me to the other relationships in the movie. Hiccup's relationship with his dad Stoick (Gerard Butler) is definitely strained. This can get a little tiresome when it's in too many movies, but it didn't come across as a lecture to parents; just a reason why Hiccup had to do what he had to do on his own. The relationship I really liked was the one between Astrid (America Ferrara) and Hiccup. America is a tough, no-nonsense girl - but Hiccup ends up being superior in the fighting skills department. Finding a balance between "tough girl" and "girl power" is a delicate business, and not too many animated movies have been able to pull it off.

My Rating: AGC

Picture from impawards.com