In my life of movie watching, very few films get the coveted 10/10 rating (The Iron Giant and The Incredibles being the other two) and rarely is it on a movie I was barely looking forward to. Though Rotten Tomatoes has How to Train Your Dragon at 98%, I was still kind of 'meh' about it.
Pardon the horrible pun, but the only 'hiccup' in this film is the main character (because his name is "Hiccup"). This movie simply has it all; memorable characters, piles of action and a 'boy and his dragon' story.
Probably the most significant thing was that I brought Brooke along to see it as her first movie. More of a test than anything else, I didn't expect an 18-month-old to last 2 hours and was expecting to be forced to leave halfway through. Luckily, the pace of the film kept her attention, as well as the fact that I told her the main dragon was a "puppy", which seemed to work pretty good (judging by her "It's a puppy!" every 4 minutes). She slept through the last 15 minutes, which was too bad because it was pretty intense.
The movie begins right away with a ten minute action sequence that introduces all the main characters, including the village itself, with a casual but informative voiceover. From then on it takes you along for a wonderful weave of the life of a young boy who doesn't belong. It deals with his job/role in the village, his father/son relationship, his love for the village hottie and his desire for medieval 'street cred'. Mocked as the only viking who is forever unable to kill a dragon (the village's only calling) he soon finds he isn't necessarily unable, but unwilling.
By befriending a dragon, Hiccup gets torn between their growing relationship and following through with his viking training back at the village. His secret life gives the film some classic moments that we've seen many times before; their first flight with inspiring music and visuals, hiding the dragon/alien/monster from the family and the classic misunderstanding once everything is found out.
There is some great voicework, fantastic animation (in action sequences as well as simple body language) and plenty of hilarious throwaway lines. The characters are in awe when they should be in awe, they're scared when they should be scared and they run like hell when they think they might get killed.
The movie doesn't pull any punches despite being a fun family film and easily just shot itself up to one of my favourite movies of all time. Extremely highly recommended.
