Your best family bet this summer

Rating: 8/10 (16 April 2010)

How to Train Your Dragon directed by Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois is a big budget CGI animation film from the DreanWorks Animation stable.
The story is set around the ancient & mythical Viking land where the glory of a man lies in becoming a dragon slayer. Dragons occasionally raid the Vikings & take the livestock & any other available food which invariably results in a fight. The protagonist of the movie is Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), son of the chief of Vikings (Gerard Butler). As with any other Viking, Hiccup wants to be a dragon slayer but is constantly discouraged by his father because he is 'different' read not muscular. So at one of the dragon raids, when Hiccup injures a most feared dragon called Night Fury, no one believes him. He goes to the adjacent woods to find & kill it, but when the time comes he couldn't do it because he realizes that it is as much afraid of him as he is of it. So he releases it & an unlikely friendship is forged. Gradually Hiccup finds that dragons are not harmful unless provoked & he tries to change the perceptions of Vikings especially that of his father. With the help of his lady love Astrid (America Ferrera), how he achieves his goal & brings peace between Vikings & Dragons forms the rest of the story. By the way, the intro of Astrid is hot, literally. There are enough action pieces & fights with a lot of . The Big Daddy at the climax looked like a hybrid between T-Rex & Archaeopteryx. Imagine a T-Rex breathing fire.
The basic structure of the story is not at all new. In fact after watching the movie, you would feel that you seen this kind of a story a 100 times where a misunderstood teenager/kid meets a misunderstood character/animal - they become friends - with the help of allies they make a difference in their surroundings - you know it. So what differentiates such movies? The characters & the settings which are new in "How to Train Your Dragon" & what more, they are beautiful. The tale is touching with enough thrills to keep you engaging although in the middle, for a few minutes, you feel that the pace has slowed a bit.
As far as animation goes, the level of detail is unbelievable. In fact if there are no animated characters in the movie, you would think that the movie is not animated at all. The shadows & the colours are superb adding amazing depth to the animation. Since it's entrance, Pixar has been walking with major revenues as well as acclaim leaving Dreamworks in its trail. With only Toy Story from Pixar in 2010, this got to be one of the leading contenders at the Oscars 2011. Already this has got the highest score for a Dreamworks Animation film at Rotten Tomatoes. Come on DreamWorks, we need some good competition to Pixar. Bring more movies like this.
All the voice cast is good. I think Gerard Butler is a Viking in his previous birth as his voice somehow suits it well. John Powell's score complements the movie well. Technically a very well made film.
If you are one of those, who felt cheated after watching the 3D versions of Alice in Wonderland & Clash of the Titans, this movie will not disappoint you. I've mentioned in my Clash of the Titans review to not see it in 3D, but How to Train Your Dragon is a movie which you should see in 3D. The movie is also being screened in 2D version but there is no point in seeing this in 2D. Although the 3D is not as superlative as say Avatar, this has some cool scenes & definitely ranks in my all time top 5 3D animation films.
If you have kids or you want to impress kids, take them to the movie & wouldn't regret your decision. They would absolutely love this. In fact I would say this is the best family movie this summer I actually beg you to take your kids to "How to Train Your Dragon" if you haven't already done so. Since I'm stressing on kids, don't think that this is not for adults. If you have a kid some where in you, you would enjoy this.
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