Wickie 2010 at highest possible level

Rating: 9/10 (27 May 2010)

Having viewed this movie a few months ago, when a long and cold and moist winter made my country shuddering, I now remembered that I wanted to write a review.
At first I have to say that I personally hate(d) 3D because I'm one of those Kings between the blind, so Stereo-3D is complete useless for me, except that it's more expensive. I always refused to view one of those new 3D movies with my children, because I was afraid to lose viewing quality..
With 'How to Train Your Dragon' I wasn't able to withstand the strong desires of both my daughters, and agreed to wear those idiotic carnival glasses during the movie.
Thanks to modern techniques, my fears were unsubstantiated and I was able to enjoy the movie's visual quality with my only one working eye, like it would be a normal 2-D animated film.
At first I realized that this was going be a very modern 'Wickie re-imaged'. If you don't know the animated series from the 70's, Wickie is a young Viking who is small but imaginative and inventive, with long blonde hair like a girl, and not a fighter like his rather dumb but strong father Halvar (The Great). After his father realizes that he has a very special son, not the usual brute dude to be proud of, but someone who saves him and his crew permanently from dangerous situations, he accepts him instantly. Any similarities there ? Yes you see, they stole heavily.
But in this movie the young hero has much more to do to convince his father being a son to be proud of. He is much more a loser, like the young son in 'Cloudy...' where is a big language barrier between father and son which hinders them from communicating in the right way. Interesting that in many of those movies today where the son is such a soft and weak and girlish loser in the first place, there is an absence of the mother (Wanted, Kick-Ass), which may come from divorced authors who always dream about having their children. However, 'Wickie' has a mother in the series, the usual Viking sized Mum, who serves at home for the good of the family (but doesn't hesitate to confront her mighty husband when he's doing wrong in her view).
But for the audiences of today, simple adventures seemingly ain't enough to make a movie interesting for them. There have to be some special dangerous but likable and fascinating thing, and what's more kind of that than dragons ? Now, the first appearance of the night-shadow dragon in this movie was very disappointing for me. It looks like Stitch whose look and feel I always hated.
Nevertheless I felt from the first minute viewing an extraordinary production, because of the sympathetic and differentiated characterizations of all persons. I wondered how 'acting' Hiccup was animated, I enjoyed the obviously teen targeted funny dialogs, and I got dizzy from the great flight scenes even in my personal 2-D.
Surely the story is predictable and the characters are cliché, but I can appreciate good and moody cliché, if it's not bothersome and if it has some fresh updates. After the movie is so much filled with things children love, with adventure, drama (yes they do love drama), about growing up, first love, finding your abilities, understanding together, it won't get along without some stereotypes, otherwise it wouldn't be so easy to understand (which is mandatory for a children's film).
After leaving the cinema my two daughters and I were completely happy and heart-warmed, so this was a very good investment, and I will also get over the additional costs for the DVD, because this is a movie you can enjoy more than once.