Beautiful, colourful, imaginative, evocative, engaging and heartwarming

Rating: 9/10 (7 April 2013)

After seeing this film three times now (twice in 3D on the silver screen and once on the idiot box), I'm of the opinion that it is a near-perfect masterpiece of modern animation. When this film came out in 2010, I was enraptured and astonished by the beauty and colour of this northern world with its stalwart Viking society and wonderful variety of dragons. Who was responsible for that? Art director Pierre-Olivier Vincent? I'm sure it was a whole team of people. The 3D effects are spectacular. The engaging and heartwarming story (based on a book by Cressida Cowell) hits home for both kids and adults. Hiccup, the little Viking who could, is a great character. Some of it is cliché, but it didn't matter. Yes, I know it's a movie for kids, but there was something clever about it that raised it to a level that adults can appreciate. Kudos to DeBlois, Davies and Sanders for bringing us this imaginative, evocative and, yes, magical film. It's going to be hard to beat this in 2014, but they can certainly count on filling the seats.