How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders, 2010): USA

Reviewed by Brittany Christianson. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011.

How to Train Your Dragon, is  a wonderful children’s movie with emphasis on friendship and acceptance.  I predict the movie will prove timeless and great for all ages.

Hiccup (Jay Baruchel, also from Knocked out 2007) is the outcast.  He is weak, scrawny and not much of a Viking at all.  Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, also from The Ugly Truth 2009) is Hiccup’s father, the greatest dragon killer of all time, and the clan leader.  Trying to gain the acceptance of his father, Hiccup tries to capture and kill the mighty Night Fury, “the unholy offspring of lightening and death its self.”  Little does he know his heart is full of love and his chosen path will soon change.

The movie touches your heart and allows you to feel what the characters are feeling.  The most memorable scene is when Hiccup and Astrid (America Ferrera, also from Ugly Betty 2003) take flight on Toothless, the all powerful Night Fury, for the first time.  At the beginning, Toothless has hostility towards Astrid.  After a frightful flight, Astrid apologizes and Toothless shows her a world that no one has seen.  They fly up above the clouds into a beautiful, peaceful new world.  Hiccup and Astrid realize the dragons were just defending themselves, and are naturally calm, peaceful creatures. And the story begins.

Cressida Cowell, original writer of “How to Train Your Dragon” proposed bringing the story to life as a movie.  Soon after, directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders (also from Lilo and Stitch 2002) made Cressida Cowell’s story a movie.  The directing was so precise it made you feel like you were a viking in Berk.  How to Train Your Dragon was such an astonishing film it won the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for best Animated Film.  The film also holds the fifth highest opening weekend for animated films in 2010, right behind Dreamworks Animation, Mega Mind 2010.  It is currently fourteenth overall for Best animation of all time. Not only did I absolutely love this movie, but I think its safe to say it was a hit around the world.

Hiccup is the outcast, a disgrace to all Vikings.  His natural heroic stature as a viking shines through when it is up to him to save his friends, family and clan.

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Published:
02.03.11 / 2pm
Category:
Films, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011