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Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) April 28, 2010

Posted by pacejmiller in Movie Reviews.
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When I first heard about the film How to Train Your Dragon, I thought it was the name of a penile enlargement instructional video.  Little did I know it was actually the new DreamWorks Animation feature featuring an amazing voice cast including Jay Baruchel (She’s Out of My League), Gerard Butler (300, The Bounty Hunter), Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera (TV’s Ugly Betty), Jonah Hill (Superbad) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Kick-Ass).

I usually like animated films, but rarely do I see one that I really love.  I don’t know why, but that’s just the way it has been.  Well, How to Train Your Dragon is definitely one of the better animated films I have seen over the last few years, but it still doesn’t quite get me over the hump.

The story is based loosely on the 2003 book of the same title by Cressida Cowell.  It’s about a weak little Viking boy by the name of Hiccup (Baruchel) who lives in a world where people live to slay dragons.  All Hiccup does is try to please his father, the Viking Chief (Butler), by capturing a killing a dragon of his own.  But of course, as the title suggests, Hiccup eventually befriends and trains one, turning the world as they know it upside down.

In terms of pure laughs, How to Train Your Dragon is not as strong as a lot of the other animated films out there — that’s not to say it isn’t still very funny.  But where the film stood out for me was its heart.  The relationships between Hiccup and his dragon, his father (Butler), his mentor (Ferguson) and the girl of his dreams (Ferrera) are all extremely well developed and more poignant than you would have expected from a cartoon about dragons.  The story itself is actually pretty good too.

And of course there’s the excellent voice cast.  Apart from Butler and Ferguson, I don’t think any of the others are immediately recognisable, but they all sound strangely familiar.  One way or the other, they manage the bring the quirky characters to life.

I think it’s definitely a film that can be enjoyed equally by children (for the dragons and the action) and the adults (for the laughs, the characters and the storyline).

4 out of 5 stars!