“One adventure will change two worlds.
As the son of a Viking leader on the cusp of manhood, shy Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III faces a rite of passage: he must kill a dragon to prove his warrior mettle. But after downing a feared dragon, he realizes that he no longer wants to destroy it, and instead befriends the beast – which he names Toothless – much to the chagrin of his warrior father.” – Letterboxd Synopsis
Even though I was a kid growing up in one of the great eras of Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks, I was never jumping out my seat to go see any of the movies they released during this era. I pretty much just saw them when I saw them, if I saw them. Which means there’s a lot I didn’t see. In some ways, that’s a cool thing. I’m able to go back and watch these movies from a fresh lens and see what all the hype was about, like I did with Tangled last year. And just like now. This is a great movie. It has a lot of heart. It was cute, fun, and the animation is absolutely amazing.
Vikings are cool and I’m always down for some viking media. I really enjoyed the world built here. This movie never shies away from showing how vast the world is. And with it being so vast and the threat of dragons being so real, I get why the tribe feels the way they feel towards dragons and thinks they need to be hunted. It’s a survival thing, it’s a Viking thing. Which makes Hiccup such a wrench in this society of brave and strong men and women. He’s a small, anxious guy. He doesn’t even sound like he belongs, so it was sweet seeing him at first try to fit in with the tribe, try to be what his father wants, then eventually meeting Toothless and becoming friends with a dragon and seeing there’s another way to live in this world with them. I love his story arc. I love his relationship with Toothless, who has such a big personality and is one of the cutest animated creatures ever. And Hiccup finding his confidence and his way leading into the climax was great.
One of my favorite things about this movie is the dragons. Not only are they all very cat coded, I loved their vast designs and the array of species we get to see. Learning more about the dragons was fun, especially when Hiccup starts to learn their abilities, tendencies, what they do and don’t like and how to tame them. It adds so much flavor to the movie. That I didn’t really expect.
The voice acting was really good. Although it is funny hearing most of these characters put on their best viking accent to match the vibe and then there’s Hiccup who just sounds like an American. It’s not really that jarring, though, and I think he did a good job. My favorite part of this movie though is its visuals. If you told me this just got released last year, I’d believe you. The animation and background scenery are absolutely gorgeous. There were more than a few jaw dropping moments and the flight scenes were so good seeing everything from an aerial few as hiccup soared through the skies. This was visually a treat.
So yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. How to Train Your Dragon is a very cute and charming movie that has a fun cast of characters and really blew me away with its visuals. I’m actually surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. It really made me excited to see what comes next with the rest of the trilogy and even got me interested in watching the live-action movie since its being made by the same guy.
How to Train Your Dragon – 9/10
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