Superb on every level

Rating: Null/10 (31 July 2011)

In this day and age when quality animated features are the rule rather than the exception, "How to Train Your Dragon" still manages to beat all comers with its charm, imagination and honest sentiment.
Based on the story by Cressida Cowell, the movie focuses on Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (Jay Baruchel), the scrawny young son of a Viking leader (Gerard Butler) who worries that his boy may not possess the mettle a true Viking warrior must have to smite the many dragons that periodically swoop in on the village to steal its food. It's not that Hiccup doesn't WANT to be a dragon-slayer; heck, he's even enrolled in a dragon-slaying course replete with real dragons for the students to practice their moves on. No, the problem is that Hiccup has met and made friends with an injured dragon in the wild (a beast he calls Toothless) and the lad soon discovers that dragons are not the natural-born enemies to Man that he and the other Vikings thought they were.
Beyond its glorious visuals, eye-popping action sequences, and terrific voice-over work, "How to Train Your Dragon," written and directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, emerges as a surprisingly compelling human tale of a boy who wants desperately to live up to the high standards his demanding father has set for him, but who just can't betray his new-found best friend in order to do so. Without getting sappy about it, the movie provides fine moral lessons for the youngsters - though, one should point out that the intensity of the action scenes may prove a tad disturbing for the very littlest in the audience. Its soaring flight scenes are some of the best we've ever encountered in an animated movie, and its canny combination of humor, adventure and sentiment catapult it to the head of the class among recent animated films (along with "Toy Story 3," that is).