Review of How to Train Your Dragon (2010) by Stuart K — 06 Feb 2015

Based upon a series of books written by British author Cressida Cowell which have been published since 2003, and directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois (Lilo & Stitch (2002) and The Croods (2013)), this is an enchanting and visually stunning animated adventure which has a lot of heart and a wit to it's name.

DreamWorks Animation may have found their successor to Shrek with this. In the time of the Vikings, on the Island of Berk, the community fight against dragons who have been stealing the livestock, the Chieftain Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler) has had giant mechanical devices made to stop the dragons.

His awkward teenage son Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) during one raid believes he's shot down a Night Fury, which is an extremely dangerous dragon. He goes to find it, and discovers it's injured. Hiccup names the dragon Toothless, and gains it's trust.

Meanwhile, Hiccup has been put into a dragon fighting class, which is something Hiccup doesn't want, but he uses his time with Toothless to gain knowledge about dragons. It's a good story, and it has some wonderful animation on display, and it manages to be touching and awe inspiring in good ways.

It's a coming of age story and it has some good jokes to balance it out nicely. Roll on How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), which already looks as stunning and exciting as this.