How to Train Your Dragon

The moment where How to Train Your Dragon comes alive sounds obvious on paper. Young viking Hiccup, an outcast in his tribe for his sensitivity, finally has his chance to slay a dragon. It’s in the unspoken understanding as Hiccup’s and the dragon’s (later named Toothless) eyes connect that this 3D animated feature hits a level of non-faked compassion. How to Train Your Dragon, Dreamworks Animation’s best since Prince of Egypt, gets the humour, heart and action the genre always strives for, mainly because everything doesn’t seem like it’s been deliberated over by commitees for five years. If the well-intended story of Hiccup trying to bring peace between vikings and dragons eventually wears thin, the excitement of the flight scenes, and the emotional pull of an inter-species friendship with a too-cute giant salamander, make for big time movie spectacle. How to Train Your Dragon is an increasingly rare genre movie in love with the potential of genre. –Mark Palermo