A Real Oscar Contender

Rating: 8/10 (17 November 2014)

A hapless young Viking (Jay Baruchel) who aspires to hunt dragons becomes the unlikely friend of a young dragon himself, and learns there may be more to the creatures than he assumed.
"How to Train Your Dragon" had an unfortunate bit of timing on its release. In probably any other year, it would have been a front-runner for an Oscar, but it had to face off against "Toy Story 3", one of the more powerfully emotional animated films in recent memory. With its breathtaking animation, HTTYD easily outdoes "Toy Story" in its innovations, but you just cannot argue with emotion.
The film also has a great metaphor on war, and those who are different. Some might dismiss this as liberal nonsense, and perhaps it is to some extent. But there is clearly a parallel to the real world: many wars that are fought may be against an enemy who never wanted to be an enemy in the first place. Of course, this is not universal; there was no alternative to war with Hitler (see the second film)... but maybe we should start seeing our enemies from their own point of view.