While Dreamworks’ animation department’s latest creation may not have lived up to the hype my friends were lauding it with, even if it wasn’t better than Kung Fu Panda or Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, it was instantly comparable to the biggest box office earner of all time, Avatar. It might even have it beat in a couple ways. Not only does it handle the subject of environmental awareness with greater subtlety than Avatar, but unlike it’s record-breaking counterpart it does a much better job of tackling the subject of coping with a disability. While Jake Sully might have sought to escape his wheelchair through his avatar, the characters in Dragon found a way to live with their impairments and making the most of their situation.
How to Train Your Dragonstars the voice of my favourite underdog, Jay Baruchel as Hiccup, a misfit viking who just wants to fit in and please his father. When he downs a rare and powerful dragon, he has the chance to kill it and win everyone’s respect, but instead decides to befriend “Toothless”, opening up a whole new world for Hiccup as he finds that the vikings’ nemeses are not what they seem. It’s a feelgood story that once again deals with a father and son without a mother, that also happens to have some great action scenes and magnificent beasts along for the ride.
As the credits started rolling listing all the celebrity voices playing the main characters, I could hear people calling out “Oh, I knew that was him!” (for Gerard Butler) “Really? No way!” (for Kristen Wiig) but the most surprising name that popped up for me was Roger Deakins as the “visual consultant”. You know, the DOP for the Coen Brothers, Sam Mendes and M. Night Shyamalan? No wonder everything looked so great! 3D or not, the flying sequences were grin-worthy and had me squeezing the life out of my popcorn bag. I don’t know how often other CG movies reach out to marquee DOP’s, but I think it paid dividends here.
The Verdict:The story and script were rich enough that it could have totally coasted by without much in the way of spectacle, but that they took the time out to try to really create something special in the visuals department delivers some cleverly original entertainment without all the preachiness you might be expecting.
I found this surprisingly enjoyable. All I was hoping for was a watchable movie with my four year old that would make us both entertained for two hours, and instead both of us came out genuinely satisfied.
As you pointed out, it doesn’t try to shove points of view down your throat, it just tells a story with some social commentary subtly enough intertwined that smart people will get it, and those that want to ignore it will have no problem doing so.
Yeah, the whole thing about coping with a disability didn’t actually crystalise until the end, for obvious reasons. But when it did, I thought it was totally genius.
I had hoped I could try it out in my 2 year old, but it’s a little bit too crazy for her, I think – not that it won’t be winding up in my collection anyway…
[...] How to Train Your Dragon: Based on the meagre early hype on this film, I didn’t even think that Dreamworks felt they had a hit on their hands with this one. This animated 3D film was a trip though, putting on some much-needed spins on the typical coming of age film with dashes of coping with handicaps and environmental stewardship. Who knew a movie about Vikings fighting dragons could touch on so many themes which an actual degree of subtlety? It’s a bit of a bummer that it was a little too intense at times to show it to my daughter, which makes this yet another kids movie (along with Kung-Fu Panda) that I can’t watch with my kids… yet. [...]
[...] the incinerator scene, I regretted having given the “no” to taking our daughter to see How to Train Your Dragon, having decided it was too scary for her. You could have ramped up the thrills in that one two [...]
Knowledge is power in this film, and I always love a good pro-intellect story; even better, this is a pro-animal, pro-empathy story, as well. Deep love of Toothless the dragon as well.
It’s a testament to the versatility of the story that so many positive messages can be culled from this film. Too bad that it’s up against such heavy hitters for awards this year, but it is a big step forward for Dreamworks animation, and a great addition to my collection.