You know that a movie is good when Sta’s comes out saying, “where’s my Dragon!?!, I want to ride a Dragon!?!?” Sta’s my friend, your day will come. Some day, you too will own your very own dragon and soar through the skies…

What am I saying, no you won’t. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but they don’t exist buddy.

Aside from that, the movie was pretty good, but Rotten Tomatoes has it at a 98% fresh rating…which is wrong. Sorry but I don’t see why everyone apparently ”loves” this movie. I would say it doesn’t compare to the likes of Kung-Fu Panda, Wall-E or Up by a long shot.

Sum It Up:

The story centers around a younger Viking called Hiccup. No, I didn’t hiccup, that’s his name…yeah not quite sure why everyone else seemed to have a strong Viking name and then he gets slapped with a name like Hiccup – it’s like he was intended to be a loser of a Viking since the day he was born. Anyways, so Hiccup sucks at being a Viking and by sucks I mean he is terrible. He doesn’t have a “mean” bone in his scrawny ass body and doesn’t want to kill Dragons. (not that he could because he can’t even pick up a sword … weak) So Hiccup comes up with this contraption that shoots down the “mysterious” dragon that no one has seen and the good part of the movie picks up from there. We then meet his new “pet” dragon that he calls Toothless. And the two must find a way to show not only the Vikings but the dragons as well that they can “all just get along”…

the Good:

Awesome job on some of the CG effects. Mainly on the vikings themselves. The hair especially was so impressive. It got the point where the hair looked so real on their garments and even their beards that it was really starting to fool me. Awesome job by the DreamWorks guys there.

Whoever was in charge of the art department should also get a pat on the back. The main viking design was also top notch. Not for the CG effects but the actual character designs for each one in the movie were pretty awesome. Without having them speak you knew which character they were meant to portray and they all had their own little quirks that helped to further define them. Along with that the scenery and the landscapes were massive and helped to contain the world as well as the set pieces for the Vikings. (their houses, boats, and accessories)

Ok I’m going to mention this both as a good thing and a bad thing. Voice acting. All of the characters aside from one were good choices. I’d have to say that the one that stood out the most was Gerard Butler. He was the voice of the head Viking and his voice is perfect for it. If any of you are un-aware he was King Leonidas in 300 and if you haven’t heard the powerful voice he produced in that movie, then you might not understand what I’m getting at.

There was one particular segment in the movie that was really good. As far as storytelling and character development and making the audience really care for what was going on up on the screen. The segment where Hiccup and Toothless are bonding and where Hiccup is helping Toothless to fly again – pretty awesome stuff. You can see very similar character subtleties from a unique Disney character a while back during this segment – which is partly due to the fact that the same writers for that Disney movie were a part of this film. (I’ll save you the stress of guessing what movie I’m referring to…it’s Lilo and Stitch) If you look at some of the expressions that Toothless conveys – they are right on par with Stitch. Anyways back to my point – this segment is awesome because at the very “tail” (haha good one Lucas) end of the movie they tie it all together really well. (yes, you’re going to have to see the movie – i’m not going to ruin everything for you)

Alright brace yourselves because I’m going to get into what I didn’t like about the movie – and yes, there are a lot of things. Though for some reason despite the fact that there are, I want it noted that I still came out saying that the movie was “good” so bare with me till the final rating at the end of the review…

the Bad:

Going to get right into my biggest complaint about the entire film: Hiccup, our main hero, the one guy that we’re all focused on…his voice talent SUCKED! It not only sucked, it was HORRIBLE. What’s something else I could use to describe it? Say you were running your fingers down a chalkboard and you didn’t want to hear that crap anymore, yeah that’s how I felt about Hiccup’s voice. And honestly, his narration part, where the movie starts in and he’s describing his village and the whole setting of the movie sounds great…then you pair it up with the way he looks and it doesn’t match at all. The character Hiccup looks like a normal teenage boy. He doesn’t have anything wrong about him other than the fact that he doesn’t look like any of the vikings. So the voice doesn’t fit. It would have been better to have him slouch awkwardly, or give him some glasses to fit the annoying “nerd-esque” voice over that he had. OMG this just really pissed me off the entire length of the film. So I warn you now! (for those who haven’t seen it)

Now that I’m fired up let’s move on to another one…the look of all the dragons except for 2 were way over the top and almost comical rather than “dragon-esque”. Our hero dragon, Toothless, his design was pretty awesome as was the final “evil” dragon that we don’t really see till the end of the movie. All of the other dragons looked like estranged lizards or snakes. I don’t get where the art department went wrong here. Everything in the film has a good look, whether it’s the trees, the fish, the textures of rocks, the vikings themselves, the houses or even the boats – but when you look at the dragons they stand out, and not in a good way. It’s almost as if the art directors were smoking whatever Dr. Seus used to smoke. I understand that it was a family movie and we’re all trying to impress the kiddies but I’m sure some of the kids were even thinking to themselves … WTF?

The whole family aspect brings me to my next point – why did it have to be such a “kid/family” movie? At least with movies like Kung-Fu Panda it had plenty of little things that entertained those of us without the annoying kid attached to our hip. Yes, there are those of us who go see animated movies because we enjoy them. Some of us might still be young at heart but we need a bit more than just “oh daddy why don’t you accept me for who I am?” context.

And my final rant is going to be on just that – the context/story/plot whatever you want to refer to it as. I’ve read some reviews on Rotten Tomatoes that give this movie the “it’s so original that it competes with stories like Up and Wall-E…”, or “Pixar better look out…” Are you kidding me?!?!? I love how people tore up Avatar left and right for not having an “original story/plot” that it had been done a million times over…did these same critics watch How to Train Your Dragon? Did they see anything that I saw? No? Hmmm, funny because I seem to think that I’ve seen plenty of these movies where our main character is someone who isn’t accepted by his society/or family, runs off on his/her own adventure and happens upon a pet or confidant of some sort who then has to rescue the town that excluded them in the first place. All the while always throwing in some sappy love story because we can’t have a movie without having a love story now can we. ARGH! Yeah, Avatar wasn’t original bu this movie was because it had Vikings and Dragons … WTF ever.

Final Thought:

Like I said before, I have plenty of things to gripe about with this movie, but they don’t detract from what ultimately I would call entertainment. Is it fun, yes, it has dragons how can it not be fun? Is it exciting, well certain parts of it are. Are the characters charming and captivating, some of them are. Overall I enjoyed the movie. Would I recommend it, I’m not sure but you can take my review as my recommendation.

Rating: 7.5/10