Don't bother

Rating: 5/10 (6 June 2010)

What an average movie. I'm not sure why I went to see it except it was one of the more-highly rated movies at the local 2nd-run theatre and I was bored. During the 1st 5 minutes, I became pretty certain I wasn't going to like the thing; I couldn't understand the dialog because of the high level of background noise: sound, explosions, mayhem, characters yelling. Who can tell what they're saying? Even during the opening scene when we're somehow flying toward the village at night, I couldn't tell what the narrator is saying. Have we seen this formulaic tripe before? Yes: Misunderstood motherless nerdy boy who has the capability to change the world, if only his father and others would listen. Did any one see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs? Same story. The second thing was the accents of the characters: Scots were Vikings! Who knew?? Yet their children speak like modern day Americans and act like them too: cliquish, bullying brats. People are the same, century after century. The dragon, Toothless, looks nothing like a killer-turned-pet by the boy's kindness. No, he's one of the stupidest-looking characters ever; more like giant tadpole. How did he lose 50% of his tail wing? Doesn't matter; without that, there's no story. And who knew: dragons eat fish! They must be part pelican. Something else we didn't know! What an education.... I'm still trying to figure out if the dragon was telepathic or what; how else did he know where the boy wanted him to fly? How did the strategy of how to avoid the big Momma dragon (we are never really told what the big and only MEAN dragon was, except that dragons are like bees and ants: they have a queen. Wow! Lizards have Queen lizards! Another revelation! Take notes, kids!!) Yep; turns out all the man-killers are really kind-at-heart, misunderstood, over-large pets. All we ever really needed to do was walk up and pet them. Again: who knew? If only we were as wise as our children! is once again the moral. Parents are left apologizing and in awe of the kids. So much for Confucius. Finally, we learn that it's really OK after all to kill a dragon as long as it's ugly and as big as an entire city. Makes sense to me...