This is how animated movies should be done

Rating: 10/10 (27 March 2010)

I went to the theatre expecting good and I got awesome instead. It was incredible... it totally blew me away.
Dreamworks has been improving like crazy since they made Kung Fu Panda (except for those franchises like Shrek, Madagascar, etc. Those are hopeless).
The plot is nothing new, it's a formula I've seen before: awkward kid who wants to make it big and get noticed in his little town where he's rejected, falls in love with a girl, screws up, disappoints his father, makes it big by accident, girl falls in love with him, screws up again, people hate him again, saves the world, wins. Take Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Ratatouille for example. But even though it has a trite plot the storytelling is amazing, they pulled it off so well. This movie has one of the best acting scenes I've ever seen.
I loved the art direction in general. The renders are truly beautiful. Everything looks very organic. You can actually see hair on people's skin which is really cool, I think I had never seen that before. It's the perfect balance between cartoony and realistic.
The character design was very interesting, especially the dragons. They went nuts designing cartoony dragons and giving them particular qualities. The main dragon looks very Stitch-like but he's nothing like Stitch. There are a few characters whose personalities and appearances match perfectly. I loved every single character in that movie, they're all so different and charismatic, even the ones who are supposed to be annoying are very likable.
The fact that the dragons can be trained is very plausible. It made me think that men learned to train and/or domesticate wild animals ages ago. We could domesticate wolves that eventually became dogs, we can train tigers, lions, whales, dolphins, bears... so why can't dragons be trained? Think about it...
I'm very happy with this movie it made me be proud of being an animator. I have hope in this industry again...
It's probably the best 3D animated movie by far. It LITERALLY made me cry tears of awesomeness. I highly recommend it. Watch it....watch it TWICE at least!