Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders

by Captain Lyaf Yarr

Title: How to Train Your Dragon
Director: Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders
Run Time: 98 minutes
Rated: PG

Summary: Hiccup is as useless as a guitar without any strings. All he wants to do is be like everyone else in his Viking village and kill dragons. When he finally catches a dragon and a Night Fury no less nobody believes him. Not even his dad, the Chief! Determined to prove he's not telling falsehoods, Hiccup rushes out to find his felled dragon, kill it and bring it back. Only he discovers he can't kill the dragon. In secret he tries to befriend and train Toothless (the name he gave the Night Fury) to fly. During this time he realizes that dragons are nothing like everyone says they are and they're just defending themselves from the Vikings and the Giant Dragon of Doom.

Why I watched this movie:

I read the book How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell and went with my family to see the movie.

Likes:

I liked how Hiccup didn't expect anything major to happen with Toothless and how he just wanted to help the dragon he'd wounded.
I loved the scenes/scenes when Hiccup was with Toothless and especially the time when Hiccup brought Toothless a fish. Haha. So gross eating raw fish! Lots of people in the theater made gagging noises, my sister included!
I liked the character Astrid. She wasn't in the book so when I saw the trailer for the movie I said to myself “Who is that … did I miss something when I was reading?” But I liked her in the movie, she was (to Hiccup) all that and a bag of chips if you know what I mean.
The animation was totally amazing. Everyone in my family exclaimed over it from the hairs on the Vikings' arms to the dragons. Especially the dragons. Very wicked cool!

It's my opinion that the movie was a lot better compared to the book. It was very different, but I liked the changes that were made.

5 Ways the Book was Different than the Movie:

In the book they actually train dragons, not kill them.
Because in the book everyone trained dragons Hiccup never wanted to kill them.
Astrid is a completely new character created just for the movie. She rocks.
In the end of the book Hiccup got swallowed by the Dragon of Doom and then got sneezed out.
In the book it said that the only Viking like feature Hiccup had was his hair, and he hide that under his helmet that he always wore. In the movie he only got the helmet after his father gave it to him.

Last minute thoughts: This whole “weird son, disappointed dad, son becomes big hero, dad becomes proud of son, happily ever” plot has happened a lot. It must be a major concern for fathers/sons. For example it's been in: Chicken Little, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and now How to Train Your Dragon. I'm not exactly saying that I don't like it, it's just that the same thing happens again and again.

Buy: How to Train Your Dragon

Movie Rating: I give this movie 4.5 treasure chests