How to Train Your Dragon

It’s spring break in many areas throughout the country and what better way to keep the kids entertained than treating them to a picture about a boy befriending a dragon and topping the entire production off by presenting it in 3D? Unfortunately, for those of you parents who were planning to dump your kids off at the cinema for a couple of hours while you try to accomplish the yard work you’ve been putting aside for weeks, well needless to say, that two foot high grass you were planning to cut is going to have to wait. Children and adults alike will absolutely fall in love with “How to Train Your Dragon”. Even with it’s simplistic story-line and rather short runtime, the spectacular visuals will engulf viewers, taking them on an adventurous ride they wished wouldn’t have to have ended to quickly.

The concept is all too familiar, however, the writers do a remarkable job presenting it in a way that is both fresh and enduring. Hiccup, more of a lover than a fighter type, would love nothing more than to fit in with the rest of his village’s body which consists of fearless Vikings who are forced to fend off dragons when the vicious monsters begin starting fires and stealing livestock. Think “Reign of Fire”, but a more sugarcoated version. As it turns out, the dragons aren’t so vicious after all. Hiccup makes this unusual discovery after using his homemade catapult to knock one of the creatures out of the sky. After discovering the injured dragon, it doesn’t take long for Hiccup to form a friendship with the fire-breather and he even goes as far as to give him a name. I can assure you that if I had to give a creature as monstrous as a dragon a name, it would be more intimidating than “Toothless”, but that happens to be the name this particular dragon is given thus we’ll play along.

Like any picture of this sort, the protagonist is always faced with an antagonist, but it’s not really the story here that keeps us intrigued. It’s the characters. The writers have really gone out of their way to develop a bundle of tremendous characters that, while obviously not realistic in the sense that they’re animated bodies, realistic in the sense that their emotions as well as dialogue somewhere connect with the audience.

“How to Train Your Dragon” is as close to flawless as an animated production can get. The only real issue I faced was the length of the film. It’s not unusually short by any means, but there is so much more exploration that could have come with both the characters as well as the environment. Whatever the case, Dreamworks has really established themselves in the animation department. I think of how brilliant this film is and can’t help but anticipate the studios next release as it’s sure to be that much better. In fact, I can already see it: “How to Train Your Dragon…Again”. Considering just how satisfied I was with the picture, I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to a sequel.