Based on the book by Cressida Cowell, the new Dreamworks animated feature How to Train Your Dragon tells the story of a Viking teenager named Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel). Hiccup is someone who does not exactly fit in with his tribe’s longstanding tradition of heroic Nordics. Where many of the people his age are as tough as nails and already as big and brawny as their parents, Hiccup is short, scrawny and the antithesis of tough. More an inventor than a fighter, the boy is determined to impress his Viking leader father Stoick (Gerard Butler) by attempting to capture and slay a one of the dragons that has been terrorizing his village on his own. Thanks to one of his inventions, Hiccup does manage to lure one of the fire-breathing lizards during a nighttime attack. But when he goes to slay the reptile the next day, he soon finds his world turned upside down once he comes face-to-face with the beast.
Whereas Pixar Studios has pretty much had a sterling track record with their computer-animated releases, the same cannot really be said for Dreamworks Animation. While there have been some animated gems from Dreamworks, such as the original Shrek, Chicken Run, Kung-Fu Panda and Wallace and Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the rest has been decidedly second-rate. Where Pixar strives – and usually succeeds – to put as much effort into story and character as it does the visuals, Dreamworks has opted instead to load clunkers such as Bee Movie, Shrek the Third, the two Madagascar films and last year’s Monsters Vs. Aliens with instantly-dated juvenile humor, crap pop tunes and animation that is hardly worth the hundreds of millions spent on these productions. I have to say that based on its ad campaign, I was expecting the same out of How to Train Your Dragon.
Much like Hiccup when he came face-to-face with a dragon, I experienced something completely different when I saw the film. Directed by Lilo & Stitch creators Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, Dragon is one of Dreaworks’ better animated efforts of late. The humor is not as childish or slapstick as you expect, the animation is quite impressive (especially in 3D) and aside from a closing theme song that evaporates the moment it hits your eardrum, the film’s soundtrack is actually quite good (the score was composed by John Powell).
Most importantly though is the fact that this movie has a surprising amount of heart, something the ads have not alluded to. Sure, the script may ring familiar in regards to how events play out and sure, scenes between Hiccup and Toothless – the dragon our protagonist captures – are straight out of the E.T. playbook. But Sanders and DeBlois show they are talented enough to give the material a fresh spin, making it funny, exciting (this is some of the best 3D I have seen on a movie screen in a long time) and even occasionally touching (credit a wonderful voice cast for helping the last aspect greatly). The work by the cast and crew make it very easy to forgive and forget the film’s familiarity and very hard to resist its charm.
How to Train Your Dragon might not scale the heights of Up or Fantastic Mr. Fox or even the original Shrek, but it certainly is one of the better films to come out so far this year, one well worth going to the theaters to see in 3D.
– Shawn Fitzgerald
