Vikings, Dragons, and Kids Who Don’t Listen
The local cinema is currently being invaded by a swarm of fire-breathing reptiles and Vikings who sound like they’ve spent too much time at a pub in Glasgow. How to Train Your Dragon, the latest offering from the people who gave us that green ogre, is a high-flying adventure that tries to convince us that a boy and a dragon can be best pals. It’s a story about a scrawny kid named Hiccup who lives in a village where the main pastime is hitting things with hammers.
While the town elders are busy trying to figure out how to stop their sheep from becoming dragon snacks, young Hiccup decides he’d rather be a veterinarian for monsters. It’s a colorful, loud, and supposedly “heartwarming” tale that will likely have your grandkids begging for a pet lizard that breathes fire. Just what we need, more things in the house that can burn the curtains down.
Review by Ben Dover
I went into this movie expecting to hate every second of it. Usually, these modern “family” movies are just ninety minutes of loud noises and fart jokes designed to keep children from poking each other for five seconds. But I’ll be honest… and it kills me to say this, How to Train Your Dragon actually has a brain. It’s a story about a kid who isn’t a meathead in a village full of them. I can relate; I feel the same way every time I walk into a modern grocery store and see people trying to pay for eggs with their wristwatches.
The main kid, Hiccup, is voiced by Jay Baruchel, who sounds like he’s permanently going through puberty. He finds a dragon, names it Toothless, and instead of doing the sensible Viking thing and making a rug out of it, he builds it a prosthetic tail. It’s a bit mushy, sure, but the way they develop the bond between the two actually works. It reminded me of my old dog, Buster, except Buster couldn’t incinerate the mailman.
What I hated, of course, was the “youth” energy of the Viking teenagers. You’ve got a bunch of kids who act like they belong in a California high school, not a freezing island in the North Sea. There’s a girl named Astrid who is far too bossy, and a bunch of other loudmouths voiced by people like Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. They spend half the movie quipping and being “edgy.” Back in my day, if you talked back to a Viking Chieftain, you didn’t get a dragon; you got sent to the salt mines.
The ending actually had some guts, though. I won’t spoil it for the three people who haven’t seen this yet, but it involves a consequence that you don’t usually see in these “everyone lives happily ever after” fluff pieces. It gave the movie a bit of weight that I wasn’t expecting. It’s still a cartoon, and it still makes me want to yell at the screen when the kids start acting like “special snowflakes,” but it’s a well-oiled machine.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (And that’s being generous, so don’t get used to it.)
The Stars of the Show
- Jay Baruchel (Hiccup): The scrawny hero. His voice is a bit like a vibrating tuning fork, but he brings a decent amount of heart to the role of a misfit.
- Gerard Butler (Stoick the Vast): Hiccup’s father and the chief of the tribe. He uses his real Scottish accent here, which makes sense because Vikings were basically just Scots with better hats.
- Craig Ferguson (Gobber): The local blacksmith with a rotating hand. He’s the only one who seems to be having any actual fun.
- America Ferrera (Astrid): The “tough girl” who eventually realizes that not every problem needs to be solved with an axe.
- Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, T.J. Miller: The rest of the teen brigade. They provide the “comedy,” if you want to call it that.
Special Effects and Music
The Special Effects are, I hate to admit, spectacular. When that dragon takes off into the clouds, it actually feels like you’re up there. They used Roger Deakins as a consultant (He is the guy who shoots all those fancy Coen brothers movies) and it shows. The lighting and the textures make you forget you’re looking at a bunch of computer code.
The Music by John Powell is the real winner here. It’s full of bagpipes and big, sweeping orchestral themes that actually make the movie feel important. Usually, these movies just use whatever “pop” song is trending on the radio to appeal to the “hip” crowd, but this score actually stays in your head. It’s almost enough to make a 60-year-old man feel something. Almost.
Complete Synopsis and Plot Breakdown
The story takes place on the Island of Berk, a Viking village that has been at war with dragons for generations. Hiccup, the awkward son of the village chief Stoick, is considered a failure because he lacks the muscle to kill a dragon. During a night attack, Hiccup uses a homemade invention to shoot down a Night Fury, the rarest and most dangerous dragon of them all.
When he goes into the woods to finish the job, he finds the dragon trapped and realizes he can’t bring himself to kill it. He notices the dragon is missing part of its tail fin and can’t fly. Hiccup begins visiting the dragon, naming it Toothless, and secretly develops a harness and a prosthetic fin so they can fly together. While learning the dragon’s secrets, Hiccup starts excelling in “Dragon Training” class back at the village, using non-violent tricks to subdue beasts, much to the suspicion of his rival, Astrid.
Eventually, Astrid discovers the secret, but Hiccup shows her the beauty of flying, and she joins his cause. However, the secret comes out during Hiccup’s final exam. Stoick is furious and captures Toothless to lead the Vikings to the Dragon’s Nest. It turns out the dragons aren’t naturally mean; they’re being forced to steal food to feed a massive, mountain-sized dragon called the Red Death who eats them if they don’t deliver.
In the climax, the Vikings are outmatched by the Red Death. Hiccup and his fellow students fly in on dragons to save the day. Hiccup and Toothless take down the giant monster in an epic mid-air battle. Hiccup is injured in the process losing part of his leg, but the war ends. The movie concludes with Vikings and dragons living together in harmony on Berk, which sounds like a nightmare for the local sanitation department.
5 Famous Quotes
- Hiccup: “I looked at him, and I saw myself.”
- Stoick: “When I was a boy, my father told me to bang my head against a rock and I didn’t do it. I thought it was crazy, but now, I see that I should have done it… more often.”
- Gobber: “Get out there! You’re a Viking! You’re not allowed to be afraid of anything… except for dragons.”
- Hiccup: “Everything we know about you guys is wrong.”
- Stoick: “I’m proud to call you my son.”
5 Notes and Interesting Facts
- The Cat Influence: The animators based the movements and personality of the dragon, Toothless, on a domestic cat to make him more relatable and “cute.”
- The Sound of Dragons: The roar of the Night Fury is actually a combination of several animals, including a tiger, an elephant, and even the sound of a sound engineer’s own voice.
- Book vs. Movie: In the original books by Cressida Cowell, Toothless is actually a tiny, common dragon the size of a poodle. The filmmakers made him a giant “stealth jet” dragon for the movie.
- Stitch Connection: The directors, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, were the same guys who did Lilo & Stitch. If you look closely, Toothless looks a lot like a black, scaly version of Stitch.
- Real Consequences: The decision to have Hiccup lose his leg at the end was a major point of contention at the studio, but the directors fought for it to show that war has real costs.
