Review: How To Train Your Dragon

In the past Dreamworks animated films, with the exception of Shrek, havve been seen as poor cousins to their Pixar counterparts. Films like Madagascar, A Shark Tale and Bee Movie were never on the same level as Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and Wall-E. But finally Dreamworks have upped the ante with How to Train Your Dragon based on the series of books by Cressida Cowell. The film concentrates on Hiccup the son of a great Viking Chief, who works as an apprentice blacksmith but dreams of becoming a great warrior like his father. The viking's are constantly at war with the dragons that are invading their land and Hiccup, along with the other young vikings, starts to learn how to fight them but he discovers that the dragons aren't as evil as he first thought and instead learns to tame them. The vikings are stil unsure of this new found relationship and find out that the Giant Dragon cannot be tamed so Hiccup and his young friends with the help of Toothless the Dragon set about defeating the Giant Dragon once and for all.

The main reason for How I Train Your Dragon's success is its warmth and its sympathetic lead. Indeed Hiccup is a lot more likeable that most of the recent Dreamworks animated heroes, even Shrek is beginning to grate after four films. His wish to please his domineering father and also impress young female warrior-in-the-making Astrid make him feel almost relatable. The film combines this warmth with some incredible animated scenes including Hiccup's first journey on the dragon as well as the final battle. Hiccup is ably voiced by everyman-nerd Jay Baruchel who will be well known to all by the end of the year thanks to upcoming roles in She's Out of My League and The Sorcerer's Apprentice. One problem with this film is that the elder vikings are all Scottish while the younger vikings are all Ameircan but at least this fact means that Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson are able to lend some gravitas to the senior vikings and Jonah Hill and Christopher 'McLovin' Mintz-Please can provide some comic shtick in the sidekick roles. Another bonus is that this film seems to be free of all the pop-culture references that Dreamworks usually litters its films with.

How to Train Your Dragon is never going to be a classic and probably won't stay in the memory for that long after being viewed but it certainly is an above-average family film that everybody can watch together.