Exceeds expectations

Rating: 8/10 (18 August 2011)

It's always satisfying to find such quality in kid's films. This was very much the case with How to Train Your Dragon. Dreamworks has really triumphed this time, making a highly creative and brilliantly original film that is surely the greatest thing Dreamworks Animation has released since Shrek. The film is set in a fantasy land where vikings rule the land and dragons rule the skies. Every night the dragons come and attack the viking town, creating a regular routine of epic nightly dragon battles. The protagonist of the film is the meek little wannabe dragon slayer, Hiccup. Hiccup longs to be a viking champion but doesn't exactly have the physique or stamina to do so. But what he does have is a heart, and so when he finds an injured dragon in the woods he slowly grows a connection to the dragon, realizing that his viking brethren have been going about the man versus dragon conflict all wrong this entire time. The film is a breathtaking fantastical adventure full of action, suspense, and plenty of laughs.
The concept of this film is something I am honestly jealous that I didn't think of it first. The idea of vikings battling a diverse race of dragons that come in all shapes and sizes is so brilliant to me, especially when presented in the way How to Train Your Dragon pulls it off. This is a story that reaches its full potential as we are constantly delivered uncanny doses of dragon action. And even the "dragons are actually our friends" message the film possesses doesn't come off as cheesy and it doesn't give the film a labored "just for kids" feel. It is still a lot of fun and it satisfies any desire you might have ever had for a vikings versus dragon film, which you might not realize you had until you watch this film. Granted, there are those things that remind you this is a kids film like the obvious subplots, the kiddy jokes, and the ending that wraps everything up a little too perfectly. But it's all kept to a minimum so as not to impede on everything else great about this film.
But what is even more wondrous and ecstatic is the beautiful artistic quality of the film. The look of the film is glorious and even overwhelming in its epic scale beauty, and the film's direction captures this so eloquently. An animated film gives a director so much more freedom in direction as there are places you can get a camera in an animated film that you never could in real life. The directors of How to Train Your Dragon know this and they utilize this rare freedom all too well, especially in the scenes that take place in the air as dragons swoop gracefully through the sky and zip around at magnificent speeds. Yet, not only is the film beautiful, it's also awesome. And I mean that with the utmost sincerity. There are truly wicked moments of the film that blew me away. They aren't things that are just cool for a kids film, they are downright badass.
I'm mostly talking here about the dragons themselves. The creature design work on the dragons is truly amazing. This film takes the dragon mythology and pumps it full of steroids and makes it something so much bigger and better than we could have ever imagined. There are numerous types of dragons which all have their own traits and abilities, as is often detailed by the character Fishlegs, voiced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who talks about every dragon as if it is a World of Warcraft villain. But the amount of thought that went into the dragons of this film and how their individuality would be utilized is incredibly well done. I would love to see a sequel to this film that takes the dragon concepts even further, despite the fact that I was not let down in the slightest by the amount of dragons in this film. There were so many moments that I forgot I was even watching a kids film and I thought I was watching a serious fantasy art flick. It was absolutely astounding.
I couldn't have been much more happy with this film. It is almost too cool for words. It is a kids film at heart and it has those little things that remind us of this fact, but overall the film is brilliant. It's visuals are astounding and the entire concept behind its story I found to be pure genius that I want to see taken even further in the future. I really do hope that this marks the beginning of a new franchise for Dreamworks Animation. I only hope that they can keep up the quality longer than they did with the Shrek franchise. But for now, all I can say is that they are off to an incredible start.