Word: training
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...particularly reflective lives. It’s hard to when one resides in a Viking village that is constantly being raided by hordes of dragons. Considering whether there are ways other than violence to approach this situation is not something that occurs to them. “How to Train Your Dragon,” based on the Cressida Cowell book of the same name, is the story of what happens when one boy comes up with an alternative solution to the town’s troubles. Thankfully, it’s also a movie in which the characters...
...christened Toothless—a creature whose creepy cuteness is strikingly similar to that of Stitch from “Lilo and Stitch” (a film that happens to be written by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, the co-writers and directors of “How to Train Your Dragon?...
...cross-species acceptance, the movie is far from lacking in some good old-fashioned dragon mashing. Of course, it’s the sort of PG mayhem in which everything on the screen is spectacularly immolated except, conveniently, the people. Apparently, the dragons of “How To Train Your Dragon” are really bad with moving targets—perhaps that’s where the training comes in. But suffice to say, Hiccup’s efforts at human-dragon reconciliation do not go over as smoothly as he hoped...
...bombast, though, what carries “How to Train Your Dragon” is the dialogue written for its characters and handed off to a superb cast. Baruchel plays the self-deprecating misfit Hiccup as though he’s talking to the audience, and not the characters on the screen. In this way, he pulls the viewer into his confidence, and both find themselves the only sane people in a village of blood-crazed Vikings...
...this character work pays off. The movie never feels like watching someone else play a video game. Instead, “How to Train Your Dragon” takes a classic and clichéd Hollywood storyline and makes it memorable. This is most evident in the wondrous scenes in which Toothless, Hiccup, and Astrid soar through the sunset to the beautiful Celtic-inspired score of John Powell. Viewers may recall a very similar CGI experience in “Avatar,” in which flying beasts streak the sky in symbiotic unity with their mounted protagonists. The difference...