Heavily Overrated

Rating: 1/10 (23 November 2019)

This film is too overhyped and overrated. Just because it's one of the few Dreamworks films without pop-culture gags that was released in 2010 (a year of few very good movies) does not mean it's a masterpiece.
First off, I will admit this has some good points. The music and animation are brilliant, and after the final battle our hero does not come out unscathed. But that's it.
The film falls flat on so many levels. Astrid is just your usual "violent-girl-turned-girlfriend" character with no other personality whatsoever. And I hate that her "punch-and-kiss" gag is condoned. It should not be. It's not a healthy idea to promote that it's okay to show fondness of others through violence, nor has it ever been a healthy idea at all.
Snot, Ruff and Tuff were jerks and karma eluded them despite their obnoxious behaviour - other than that, they were bland and just plain uninteresting. Fishlegs meanwhile is entirely a soulless, empty character.
And Stoick is just an abusive parent who doesn't get what he deserves and frankly it's unfair how Valka from the second movie is just lambasted by fans while Stoick gets praised on "how much of a good father he is". Laughable.
The only characters that one can root for are Hiccup, Gobber and Toothless. The rest of the tribe are either zombie-bland or hideous to the point that I wish that they were killed by the Red Death. They were just sheer unlikable jerks who gave Hiccup so much grief that the way they get off so easily at the end is legitimately horrendous writing.
And Hiccup's character suffers from some stupid writing. We lost our leg? Never mind that (in under a minute) - happily ever after. Nearly everyone abuses me? Forget about that at the end! Happily ever after 'cause we won!
So much crap happens to Hiccup that he should have had a scene where he calls out those who wronged him. But he doesn't. He's just another bland hero guy. The only reason why I root for him in this movie is that along with Toothless and Gobber, Hiccup is not an unbearable jackass unlike the rest of his tribe.
But yes, bland hero writing and a lack of dire consequences (emotional scarring, anger at abuse, amputation freak-out, etc.) drag down this movie.
There wasn't a single onscreen Viking death. Just how realistic is that?!
Oh, and I also feel the need to mention that the Battle with the Red Death goes against the film's message of "dragons are not bad and violence shouldn't be used as a first resort".
This movie was just pretentious and soulless. It's overrated and fails to get its mature ideas across.
The sequel did a way better job at, well, everything.