How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

Last nights film was 2010's How to Train Your Dragon.  Gerard Butler and Jay Baruchel star as father and son in a Viking community.  They are supported by big names such as Jonah Hill, America Ferrera and Kristen Wiig.  This started out as a 3 star rating, but once we got about half way into the movie, it upgraded to a 4 star rating.  I'll explain below.  How about we rate on acting (well, voicing) with animation, script and enjoyability.



Acting and animation is up first.  Acting is a tough one to rate in an animated film, but lets focus on how well the actors voice was reflected into the emotions and actions of the characters.  The only thing I really noticed here was that Hiccup's voice seemed too calm through a lot of the movie.  He was flying around on Toothless and he sounded like he was just sitting down in a chair in the living room.  Besides that, I thought that emotions were reflected quite well throughout the entire movie. You could feel what was going on, and it was translated quite well into the animation of the film.  Everything seemed to flow smoothly.  It was a bit different animation that a lot of the films I have seen recently, the characters were very unrealistic looking.  This was not a bad feature however, I believe it actually added to the visual appeal of the film.  The dragons were absolutely incredible.  I envy the imagination and creativity that went into the dragons.  They turned out amazing, and I loved that they weren't the typical dragon that you think of when you hear the word.  The extent that they went to with the creation was extremely impressive.  Each dragon had different defenses and weaknesses, as well as each one looking different and having different harmonies with the universe.

Script was good as well.  This is where I will explain my statement in the opening paragraph.  The first few minutes of the film I thought were a bit slow to develop.  Once the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless started to develop the movie took off.  It was amazing from there on out.  The father son predicament was a bit predictable, but what movie doesn't have some type of predictability now days?  The development between all the characters turned out great, all the kids became friends and everything ended all happy.  Predictable, but entertaining none the less.  My favorite feature of the movie was that the harsh, evil, horrible monster dragons turned out to be loving and very smart creatures.  What a twist on our classic interpretation of this creature!

Enjoyability as you guessed was good.  After the initial first few minutes the rest of the film was great.  On a side note, on second viewing the beginning portion of the film was much better.  It is a very kid friendly movie, it just has a little bit of mild violence and a few scary concepts.  I would venture to say it is alright for most kids who can understand those concepts.

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