How to Train Your Dragon

Posted by christopher on November 9, 2010

How to Train Your Dragon. This is one of those movies that makes you want to own movies. It succeeds on so many levels, which I will now go into…

Hiccup is a viking. Hiccup is the son of the Viking king. Hiccup has a crush on Astrid. Hiccup is a runt. Hiccup is understandably a bit down on himself, wanting to both please his father, impress Astrid, and live up to his Viking heritage. So he must, of course, slay a dragon, which attack Hiccup’s village on a regular basis taking lemming-like sheep for food. Toothless is a dragon of the infamous Night Fury variety: fast, precise, and seemingly only motivated by destruction for destruction’s sake. Hiccup, in his own dumb luck, sacks Toothless during a raid and in a failed attempt to prove his Viking prowess, he can’t help but fall for that punum and so the conflict begins.

Any animal lover will instantly melt upon the first scene between Hiccup and Toothless. This is truly the success of the film: the animators have, with such precision through facial and body expressions, turned what should be a violent dragon into a house cat or lap dog. And they delve into and develop the relationship between Toothless and Hiccup, translating that which anyone who has had a pet has experienced.

As an animated film, the graphics are superb. Perhaps more nuanced than most would be impressed by, I was blown away at the realism of the textures. Hiccup’s father, Stoick, understandably has a Viking-sized beard that truly looks rough, scraggly, and dreaded like you would expect in a live-action feature. The dragon’s scales are leathery, their flames splash, more akin to magma that pure fire; the resulting smoke, fog, and clouds are voluminous and misty.

The voice acting is rather on-point. Jay Baruchel (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” “Tropic Thunder”) is himself a scrawny, nerdy character and so it’s none too much of a stretch for him to portray those characteristics to Hiccup. Gerard Butler is his rough, meaty father which again isn’t much of a stretch. Craig Ferguson, playing Hiccup’s mentor, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, playing Hiccup’s peer, both add a fun, geeky (if you’ve played an RPG or D&D) element which lightens the dialog to the heart warming tale.

Overall I think HtTYD is one of the top, if not the top (I’ve yet to see “Toy Story 3”) movies of 2010. It’s an incredible showing for DreamWorks and has earned a spot on my movie shelf.

The Verdict:

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