Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon
Story Overview (no spoilers):
“How to Train Your Dragon” tells the tail of Hiccup the not-so-viking, Viking. He lacks in every area: no muscle, no beard, no hard head and no heart for killing dragons. And this reality is not lost on the rest of the Vikings. More than once when someone mentions his flaws Hiccup observes sadly, “You’re pointing to every part of me.”
Everything changes for Hiccup when he’s given the chance to kill the most mysterious and dangerous dragon of them all, the Night Fury. How he acts in this moment will change forever the way all the other Vikings see him. But how that all comes about is not at all what he would have expected.
Rating and Content Review:
The PG rating had me a bit concerned about bringing my 3 small children. However, I was pleasantly surprised. From my observation it garnered that rating primarily for its “intense action” sequences and fierce fire breathing dragons. Some of which my 4 and 5 year old covered their eyes for. None of which turned out to be “over the top.” The language was clean and the “adult” humor was thankfully lacking from most of the movie. Though, there was one scene involving Hiccup’s Viking helmet that slightly crossed that line.
The level of intense action and fighting would be on par with movies like “Kung Fu Panda”. Though, any parent taking their children to this movie needs to know that the background of the story is a war between the Vikings and dragons and subsequently there are many battle type scenes including one ginormous and intimidating dragon.
Any religious undertones were minimal. I was pleased to see that this was not a “new age” movie. It did not appear to have any underlying messages about your inner power or other such empty philosophies. Occasionally a Viking would say something about the gods or use a nordic god’s name.
Summary:
Overall: the story line was engaging, the message was positive and the 3D movie experience was fun. On theAlley scale I give it 4 out of 5 bricks.
IMO – you could pretty much save the money and see the plain version as I didn’t think the 3D effects were all that spectacular. As long as you know your children, heed the warning that the dragons are not like disney’s pete’s dragon but sharp teeth and roar enormously. I thought the storyline could provoke some interesting conversation too about what you would do if faced with some of the same dilemnas Hiccup faced. Seriously, who names their child Hiccup?