Review: How to Train Your Dragon

Review: How to Train Your Dragon

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 98%

Find a movie that will please a five-year-old boy who likes plenty of action, a twelve-year-old boy who may be on the verge of being too sophisticated for feature-length cartoons, and a grandmother (of no specified age) who has had her fill of movies replete with scatological humor and aimed at children. Find that movie, and you've got a winner -- and the critics and millions of families do seem to agree.

Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon boasts a solid story and plenty of action. Hiccup, a Viking youth, is something of a disappointment to his father, the leader of his village. Hiccup is clumsy and not particularly adept at hunting dragons in the usual way. However, he cleverly manages to bring a Night Fury dragon down, but he can't bring himself to kill it. Instead, he begins a tentative relationship with the dragon he dubs Toothless, a mesmerizing creation (powerful and menacing with a face like a benign house cat). Needless to say the two or them learn a great deal from each other and Hiccup helps his village learn to live in harmony with the powerful dragons they had previously feared. Beautiful animation.

(We saw the film in 3-D. My grandson Max and I agreed that we would have enjoyed it just as much without the special effects.)

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it