Hey guys! So I've been away for quite awhile but I'm back now bitches!! And in time to, the summer movies are about to start. So let's get to it with How To Train Your Dragon.
Finally after that flop of a movie called Monsters vs. Aliens, Dreamworks has finally returned to making animated movies that could give Pixar a challenge at the Oscars again. I absolutely adored this movie, given that it did have some flaws and is miles below the awesome-nest of Kung Fu Panda, Dragon is quite alright.
The movie is about this viking village that has dragons as pests. It's kind of like an everyday occurrence for them to be attacked by these hoards of dragons and it's become some sort of a sport for them. But with every animated film, we get the outcast of the group and that's Hiccup, voiced by Jay Baruchel who's like this really scrawny kid. But by accident, he manages to capture the dragon that's hardest to kill and through the movie, they form this Witwicky-Bulmblebee bond and Hiccup realizes that there are more to dragons than just killing them.
Okay I gotta admit. I'm not impressed with the storyline. Why? Cause it's the same storyline as any animated film we see. Character is outcast of society. Character stumbles upon rare opportunity. 30 minutes of funny scenes. Conflict towards character occurs. Character steps up and saves the day. Happy ending yay! We've all seen this done a hundred times but what makes Dragon better than the rest was the way they went about telling it.
And by that I meant the 3-muthafuckin-D! Remember how cool the flight scene in Avatar was? Well How To Train Your Dragon is just like that... only it's for 1 hour 30 minutes. The flying sequences in this movie is amazing, especially in 3-D. I haven't had that feeling of flying and falling for a long time, it may scare some of the younger kids but I don't give a damn!
But the star of the film has got to be Toothless, the main dragon in this movie. The film incorporates all the fantastic styles of animation Disney had in WALL-E and put it into Toothless. We never hear this character speak at all but we know everything we need to know about him just from his eyes and his expressions. And for some really weird reason, I kept thinking of Stitch from Lilo & Stich when I'm watching Toothless. They kinda look similar, no?
One thing I gotta respect about the filmmakers is that they didn't try to bring in comedians to give funny voices to the dragons. Thank God they didn't have like, an Eddie Murphy dragon or a Chris Rock dragon, that would have made this movie go from totally enjoyable to complete shit fest for me.
Jay Baruchel is great as the voice of Hiccup. But I think if he really spoke like that in real life, I would slap him because his voice is so nerdy, and I mean like the annoying kind of nerdy. The only reason why I liked him in this movie is because he suited Hiccup so so well, so great casting on his part. Gerard Butler is really good in this. But my favorite of all was Craig Ferguson as Gobber, some sort of a wise cracking, drunken version of Kung Fu Panda's Shifu.
The only thing I wished they would have done in the movie was give more character development to the side characters. In the movie, we have these bunch of characters whom Hiccup goes through dragon training with and they are funny as hell. But nothing much is really done with them, which makes it weird since they served a big role in the climax of the film. These characters kind of reminded me of the Furious Five from Kung Fu Panda only that we got a full side story with the Furious Five but in Dragon, we get the usual Judd Apatow jokes.
But that is just a minor complaint, it may have taken the focus off the story for awhile but that's what I would have done. And I gotta praise this movie for one little twist they add to Hiccup's character towards the end of the movie which is really bold for an children animated film to do, because let's be honest.. these kinds of movies never do.
Dreamworks has released better movies than this, familiar unoriginal storyline, but it's what they do with it that makes this so enjoyable. If you're going to watch this, watch it in 3-D. It's absolutely stunning on the big screen, charming and witty story between Hiccup and Toothless and that big ass dragon at the end made it worth the RM18 I payed.
RATING: 8/10
