DVD Review: How To Train Your Dragon

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Did Dreamworks finally one-up Pixar?

It's no secret that Dreamworks always seems to fall short compared to Pixar. I think one of College Humor's "Honest Oscar Posters" summed it up best last year:


How To Train Your Dragon is a refreshing change. It follows a young Viking, Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) who is supposed to be training to fight dragons. Instead he finds himself caring for one that is injured, and realizes everything the Vikings ever knew about dragons was wrong.

It's a very predictable plot, but most kids movies are. Dragons manages to be very endearing and teach a valuable lesson throughout.  There's actually lots of lessons piled into this film. Learning to except who you are, and not be who someone else wants you to be. Not judging a book by it's cover. Seeing something from another's point of view, etc. The animation is good, though not as ground breaking as say, WALL-E for instance. It was a very enjoyable film nonetheless, and probably Dreamwork's best since Shrek 2.

Voice actors include Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig,and David Tenant.

Recommended: Yes

Grade: A-
Memorable Quote: "Thanks for the breast-hat." - Hiccup (Jay Baruchel)

--EDIT-- After thinking about it more, I raised my grade from B+ to A-. Also, l thought I should include the following: When I wrote my review for Toy Story 3, I wrote "See you at the Oscars, Dreamworks." After viewing this, I should definitely change that to "See you at the Oscars, Pixar!"

Comments

  1. LesyaOctober 21, 2010 at 12:54 PM

    It's just the cutest animated feature this year. Although few will agree with me, I honestly hope that it'll triumph over Toy Story at the awards.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ryan McNeilOctober 21, 2010 at 2:20 PM

    Count me as another who hopes this triumphs over TS3 come Oscar time.

    Indeed this film is cute, funny and has a few good morals...but what makes this film so amazing is the direction involved. The directors actually brought in Roger Deakins (cinematographer known for his eye-popping work with The Coens) to be a visual consultant.

    What he did was take every scene that takes place in the air, and give it a dynamic photographic style that few other animated films have (compare these moments to similar moments in UP for example).

    The attention to detail is amazing, and it was even one of the very few films that played in 3-D where the 3-D rendering actually enhanced the whole experience.

    Pretty safe to say that this film will be in my year-end top five.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brittani BurnhamOctober 21, 2010 at 2:24 PM

    I agree with both of you. I hope it triumphs over Toy Story 3 as well. When I wrote my review for Toy Story 3, I wrote "See you at the Oscars, Dreamworks." After watching this, it's definitely the other way around!

    ReplyDelete

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