How to make a good animated film

Rating: 6/10 (30 December 2015)

"How to Train Your Dragon" is an animated feature film from 5 years ago that was nominated for 2 Academy Awards. It lost Score to "The Social Network" and "Animated Feature" to "Toy Story 3". Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders directed this film and they were also 2 of the 4 people who adapted Cressida Cowell's book so successfully for the big screen. A second film followed and also a television series plus several short films that were mostly added as DVD material. I will not go a lot into detail about who the voice actors here are. You can check that in the list of cast and credits. The movie runs for slightly under 90 minutes not counting the credits and, thus it is a bit shorter than the sequel, but not by much.
There is one main antagonist in this film: a gigantic dragon. To me, movies usually stand and fall with how interesting this main antagonist is. And I have to say that I did not find him too interesting. The reason is probably that we do not find out too much about him really. Apparently, he threatens all the other smaller dragons and forces them to bring him tons of food on a regular basis. This is why the dragons only steal from the humans in order to secure their own survival. This explanation is a major plot-point of the film in order to explain how humans and dragon co-exist peacefully at the end after centuries of fighting. The main character is Hiccup, a boy who just does not seem to have it inside of him to fight dragons. After a fateful meeting with a black Night Fury dragon, the two become friends and their relationship is put to the test. Same goes for the boy's relationship with his father, which is one of the emotional core points of the film. I said earlier that I was not too fond of the main antagonist. This is, however, not a major problem here as the movie is much more about humans and dragons bonding than about defeating the beast.
There are some very beautiful scenes in this film. I thought Toothless, the Night Fury, was animated greatly. I loved his face expressions when he interacts with Hiccup all the time. I also really loved the flying scene with Astrid and Hiccup on Toothless. A thing of beauty and certainly this scene alone is worth watching the film on the big screen. But there are more of course. Yes there are also a couple slightly cringeworthy moments like Hiccup becoming too heroic and a couple really untrained kids on small untrained dragons defeating the big monster, but oh well. Dragons are fantasy creatures anyway, so we should not expect too much realism in here. It's sometimes tough to remember that, but if you do, you will be rewarded.
As a whole, I enjoyed this film. Certainly among the best animated films from 2010, even if I have to admit I liked "Toy Story 3" still a bit more. So I am with the Academy on this one. And I also actually liked the sequel to HTTYD even more than this one, especially because of its emotional impact. This is one area, during which this film here sometimes came a bit short. Nonetheless, it was a pretty good watch and overall, I recommend "How to Train Your Dragon". Definitely worth checking out. Maybe if you are unsure, watch an episode of the television series first or a short film and decide then, but I am positive that you will not be disappointed. Thumbs up.