My Movie Review on How to Train Your Dragon

Greetings, my friends.

This is your jolly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.

Today, for my 220th film analysis, I'm gonna give you guys my take of "How to Train Your Dragon".

Here's the rundown of this tale:

Hiccup is a young viking who, despite being the son of his village's chief (Stoick the Vast), is quite a misfit amongst his people because bad luck seems to follow him wherever he goes. Having longed for taking down dragons just like his father and the rest of the adults have been doing, Hiccup finally gets his chance by managing to shoot down one of the most feared dragons of all: A Night Fury.

Afterwards, Hiccup tracks down the Night Fury and finds it in the forest. Instead of killing the dragon right away, though...he lets it go. In doing so, Hiccup discovers a whole other side to dragons that he never saw before, and it brings everything he and his people know about dragons into question.

In the midst of this, Hiccup, along with a group of other teenagers named Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut go into dragon training, and Stoick tries to locate the nest of dragons that have been raiding the village for many long years.

I know that the summary I gave may have caused things to sound a little straightforward, and I'm sorry if it contained spoilers. But, this was ultimately the best I could come up with as I thought about it more.

I really can't lie, I've been wanting to make reviews on the "How to Train Your Dragon" trilogy for an awfully long time, as they're not only some of my favorite films but ones I just couldn't giving my own take of no matter what. All I needed to do was find the right time to make my reviews, and now...I can finally do so by starting with this one.

So, what do I think of the movie that started it all?

Well, I really can't deny it, this movie's AWESOME! Even more than I remembered it being too.

For instance, the voice acting, casting, characters, and character development were fantastic.

As with many of the animated movies I reviewed that were done by Dreamworks, I deeply enjoyed how the production team managed to get even the most unusual of casting choices be the perfect fit for their characters, and the performers themselves portrayed their parts with outstanding personality, emotion, and comedic-timings. In every way, it also seemed like the performers actually became their characters and didn't just provide the voices. A prime example comes from Jay Baruchel's performance as Hiccup, who certainly wasn't given an Annie Award for "Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production" without reason.

The characters themselves were likewise extremely enjoyable and lovable to hang with, and I can't recall a single person or dragon that wasn't without development. In my opinion, the human characters that grew the most throughout the film were that of Hiccup, Astrid, and Stoick; and Toothless was not only the best and funniest dragon in the entire film, but the most dynamically-developed of them too. As an honorable mention, I'd like to say that I love how the filmmakers made Gobber to be like a brother to Stoick and an uncle to Hiccup.

The direction by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, and the screenplay by them and Will Davies, were awesome as well.

In regards to if I read the original books by Cressida Cowell, I will admit that I haven't. But, I also don't think it's necessary to do so considering the author and Dreamworks stated that there are a great many differences between the books and movies. Even as someone who didn't read the books, though, I thought that the filmmakers did an incredible job at making this movie a masterpiece in its own right. It has witty and humorous moments that are gut-bustlingly hilarious, and there's a tremendously vast amount of emotion and heart that is deeply soul-tugging. The story was also character-driven to a tee, and the morals that it had were undeniably meaningful ones to live by.

The animation was astonishing, if I may add.

As a computer-animated movie done by Dreamworks, the film was a great showcase of the company on their A-Game. The overall visualization not only had the feel of a three-dimensional storybook brought to the screen, but it carried a depth that showed how personally-invested and committed the animators were to the project. The visual gags were amazingly entertaining to watch, the animation used to create fire, water, and environments were gorgeous to the eye, and the character animation was wonderfully crafted and had no "uncanny valley effect" vibes whatsoever. The parts that featured Toothless and Hiccup going through the clouds were likewise some of the most breathtakingly accomplished elements I've seen in an animated movie.

Finally, the music by John Powell was magnificent.

Powell's score held a certain air and crescendo that made the music feel like it was played by a viking orchestra, and there was an emotionality to it that was strong enough to resonate to one's heart. The way Powell managed to capture the feelings of the characters and tone of the movie was brilliant as well, and so was his ability to give his music a sense of personality.

In conclusion, "How to Train Your Dragon" is a sky-high gem of an animated film, as well as one of Dreamworks's best movies. In a jaw dropping way, everything about it is just so amazing.

So, I rate "How to Train Your Dragon" a solid five out of five stars.