How to Train Your Dragon Review

How to Train Your Dragon , directed by Dean Deblois and Chris Sanders, will bring you back in time and give you an experience like no other. The film is cute, funny, witty, and great for adults and children.

The film is about a Viking village that is at a constant battle with all types of dragons. Stoick, (Gerard Butler) the warrior leader of the Vikings takes charge of his village and turns battle like the ones from film 300 (2006). All the Vikings look up to Stoick and his courageous ways, including his awkward, scrawny, and intelligent son, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel).

Hiccup’s only dream is to become his father, big, tough, and fearless. However, each attempt he makes to help out his village only backfires and he becomes more of a social embarrassment, especially to his father.

Yet this fragile boy had a plan. Though he is not big enough to fight a dragon, he made up for his lack of strength with his knowledge. Hiccup is an inventor and decided to create a device to catch a dragon. Luckily, his invention works and catches the Night Fury dragon, the most feared dragon to his tribe. Yet when it came time to slay the dragon to impress his father, he refrains. Hiccup ends up letting to of his victim and discovers the dragon is more afraid of humans than the humans are of them.

Hiccup determines that dragons should not be feared at all, and that they are actually gentle creatures. He ends up studying the dragon and finds the animal can be quite domestic. He gives his new pet the ironic name of “Toothless” and eventually finds that the animal can be ridden like a horse. The only issue is, how to convince the rest of his village his findings when everyone expects him to kill a dragon, especially his bloodthirsty father.

This film not only teaches many life lessons, but also is subtlety sentimental while being highly humorous. There was not a moment in the film when the audience was not in laughter. Dreamworks made the film, the same studio that produced Shrek and Madagascar , so of course the film had dirty humor that adults could enjoy and that children would not notice.

How to Train Your Dragon also had an all-star cast including Kristen Wiig from SNL and Extract (2009), as well as Jonah Hill from Superbad (2007). The acting, or should I say the voices were amazingly casted and well done.

I also enjoyed how the dragons were portrayed. The dragons were very similar to felines and horses: the movements, the eyes, and the sounds. These features brought a familiarity to the audience of these mythical creatures. This also helped the dragons have lovable personalities which changed the audiences’ biases of dragons being horrifying and cruel.

What surprised me was how well the film was written and directed from Deblois and Sanders whose only big name films were Disney’s Lilo and Stitch (2002) and Mulan (1998). What I find even more amazing is that Disney didn’t keep these two, and how they both went to the competitor, Dreamworks.

Overall I would give this film an A+. The animation was outstanding and at some points as a viewer I forgot the film was animated. The film was also amazing in 3-D. Instead of distracting the audience with effects, it added to the storyline. There were only a few scenes that even used the 3-D effect, mainly the flying scenes and when the dragons breathed fire. As an audience member, this is a huge factor, to see if a film throws in special effects just because they makers can, or if they use it to keep the audience surprised and add to the plot. I can conclude that the film will be just as fantastical in normal viewing.

This film should not be missed, and will be fun for all. It had everything, action, romance, humor, and dragons. What more could an audience ask for? How To Train Your Dragon comes out March 26^th.