Hawkstar's Review

[Hawkstar]

DreamWorks takes us to yet another fantasy world in How to Train Your Dragon. Loosely based upon Cressida Cowell’s book of the same name, How to Train Your Dragon easily shapes up to be DreamWorks’ emotionally deepest and possibly even best animated film. In the movie, Hiccup, an outcast in his Viking tribe, befriends a Nightfury dragon he nicknames Toothless. However, this causes problems when Hiccup is challenged with fighting a group of dragons waging war on the Viking village of Berk.

How to Train Your Dragon is directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, best known for directed Lilo and Stitch and Heima respectively, and they do a wonderful job with the film, making it a pleasure to watch. The main voice cast is made up of Tropic Thunder’s Jay Baruchel as Hiccup, 300’s Gerard Butler as Stoick, Superbad’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs, Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Jonah Hill as Snotlout, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants’ America Ferrera as Astrid, and late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson as Gobber. The voice cast’s performance in this film is, overall, good, with the strongest performances coming from Baruchel and Butler.

I was fortunate enough to see How to Train Your Dragon in 3-D and, though at times you may not notice it, the film certainly benefits from the technology. During some of the flying sequences, I actually felt like I was there more than I ever had with any IMAX film. The visuals are amazing as well. From the vast landscapes to the individual scales on the dragons, everything is a feast for the eyes.

In total, How to Train Your Dragon gets a 9 out of 10, despite a title that may lead you to question its quality. It is a great animated film that isn’t afraid to take the proper risks to get its message across and keep its audience enthralled.


So, yeah. There's my review. Just thought I'd put it out here. Technically, it's an advanced copy because it won't be published until later this week...

[Admin]

Is this the one you said you wrote in a Newspaper? It reads like something professional to me.

I'm glad you gave it an 8/10. I gave it a 10, but that's because I've been so... disappointed with a lot of movies lately.

[Hawkstar]

Yeah, this is the one I wrote for the paper, though I haven't sent it out yet and I've made a few tweaks. The largest change is that I bumped it up to a 9 out of 10 (will change that in the review here momentarily) because, after really thinking about it, I felt like the movie really deserved that, at least.