How to Train Your Dragon in 3D ROCKS! (Sunday, April 4, 2010 / 9:35 AM)
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Whoa. How to Train Your Dragon is the best 3D movie ever! Way better than Avatar and Ice Age 3! The 3D effects are improving in just a few months of many other 3D movies. That shows how advanced technology is nowadays. I love the characters as they are so colourful and CO_OL. I love Toothless, Hiccup's Dragon, the most! Hahaha! It's so adorable! The effects were real awesome. You can really see the dragons flying straight in front of you or even splinters of wood splatter everywhere! Ain't that fascinating?
Some movie reviews by other reviewers that I agree upon:1) In a land called Berk where Vikings are constantly warring with all sorts of dragons, the frail yet ambitious Hiccup has a hard time fitting in as well as pleasing his father, a massive leader by the name of Stoick the Vast. Hiccup gets his strange name from the Viking belief that ugly or repugnant names will ward off trolls and other forms of evil, and How to Train Your Dragon is littered with many of these types of Viking/Norse customs and beliefs. Certainly, it helps add to the movie’s charm in addition to fleshing out the world of Berk and its inhabitants. Anyhow, try as he might, Hiccup proves to be only a nuisance and a hazard in the Vikings’ battle with the dragons and, as such, he is prohibited from so much as stepping outside during dragon raids.
Speaking of dragons, the different species featured in the movie are diverse and imaginative. There’s no traditional dragon per se, but colorful, parrot-like dragons, fat bumblebee-like dragons, and even a two-headed species of dragon, with one head that breathes flammable gas and another head that sparks and ignites it. If you’ve ever sketched different types of dragons on your notebook while in middle school, you’re sure to be impressed with the types brought to life in the film.
The most feared dragon in all of Berk, however, is one that no one’s ever seen and lived to tell about - the Night Fury. The Night Fury flies at night, nearly impossible to see in the dark sky above, and its breath weapon (D & D reference, sorry) never misses, more reminiscent of a missile fired from an F-16 jet than a fireball emitted from a flying reptile. Needless to say, the normally courageous Vikings are mortified of the Night Fury.
One night, when dozens of dragons are raiding Berk for its sheep, Hiccup decides that the only way to win his father over is to kill a Night Fury. With a lot of luck, Hiccup manages to shoot the Night Fury down from the sky - using a sort of cannon that fires steel balls connected by rope - and finds him in a small canyon deep in the forest the next day. The jet black beast is immobilized, but Hiccup can’t bring himself to slay it. Instead, he lets the dragon go. After roaring in Hiccup’s face, the dragon does its best to fly away, but it’s clear that the animal is injured and unable to fly normally.
Taught by Gobbler the Belch in dragon fighting classes, Hiccup and his peers are told that dragons always go for the kill. Knowing that this piece of information is demonstrably false, Hiccup returns to the small canyon to find the Night Fury again and learn more about the creature. While Hiccup’s peers learn from Gobbler, Hiccup receives hands-on training on his own with the Night Fury. It turns out, of course, that dragons are horribly misunderstood beasts, and Hiccup is saddened by the continuous attacks on dragons by his Viking brethren. Hiccup and Night Fury form an incredibly strong bond that must be kept secret from the rest of the dragon-hating Vikings. The two are linked by something more than mere convenience, too, which can be chalked up to thoughtful writing.
The Night Fury - who Hiccup names “Toothless” due to its retractable teeth - is an impressive animal. The zoology major in me loved the creature’s design, as it’s clear that the biological rule of “structure fits function” was followed; Toothless is aerodynamic for speedy flight, jet black so as to blend in with the night sky, and has gigantic eyes like an owl for spotting prey from far away and during night. Even better, Toothless and the rest of the dragons don’t talk. Instead, they’re portrayed as wild but intelligent animals, and the fear and misunderstanding of the species as a whole reminded me quite a bit of the way the public perceives sharks.
Visually, the movie is stunning. The texture of the Vikings’ hair and coats is almost impossible to distinguish from real hair or fur, and the dragons - even the cartoony-looking ones - move like real animals. You can get a real appreciation of all the textures in the film, from face stubble to scales to the ocean, but the most memorable scenes are, without a doubt, those in which Hiccup flies on the back of Toothless. I saw this movie in 3-D and while it was no Avatar (what is?), it certainly wasn’t gimmicky and added to the overall experience.
How to Train Your Dragon could have maybe used a little bit more humor, but that’s only because it is essentially a kids/family movie. Nevertheless, the action scenes are intense, the main characters are incredibly likable, and the bond formed between Hiccup and Toothless is one that anyone with a dog can appreciate.
2) Animated movies come in all shapes and sizes, with different goals, ideas, and aims. Pixar’s movies, for instance, are usually focused on making an emotional connection with the characters. You cried during the first ten minutes of Up, go ahead and admit it. Other animated films are played primarily for laughs, others pitch some moral lesson. How to Train Your Dragon takes a simple approach: It’s selling adventure. Wild, high-flying, wind in your hair adventure. A lot happens along the way and sure there’s a message but DreamWorks movies at their best, and this is one of them, are all about escapism. How to Train Your Dragon takes its audience on a fire-breathing, dipping, diving ride and never looks back.
It starts in Viking village, one which looks a lot like the hillside halls of Rohan in Lord of the Rings. In the village lives a horde of sturdy, ass-kicking Vikings and a kind of nerdy, gangly kid named Hiccup. They’re at war, pretty much all the time. Their enemy is a horde of fire breathing dragons who raid their homes, almost nightly, snatching livestock and burning everything in sight. Anyone else would have moved long ago, but they’re Vikings, and stubbornness comes with the territory. Hiccup though, is far less Viking than the norm and he’s not much good at fighting or staring danger in the eye and lopping off its head. Still he wants to fit in and so, desperate to prove himself, he concocts a catapult and uses it knock one of their aerial attackers out of the sky. When no one believes he’s done it, Hiccup strikes off on his own to find his downed foe, and discovers something unexpected.
Hiccup finds his dragon trapped and injured. Unable to kill a helpless animal, he frees it, helps it, and eventually actually learns to ride it. The movie launches into a series of utterly breathtaking flying sequences, soaring through clouds and skimming along an endless ocean as Hiccup and the creature he names “Toothless” figure things out together. For a time things seem to be going well, Hiccup keeps his secret and uses the dragon know-how he learns while working with Toothless to impress his fellow villagers. But of course, it’s a state which can’t go on forever, and eventually things come to a head.
It’s the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless which really carries the film. Toothless, in particular, is a brilliant piece of animation. He’s drawn in the mold of DreamWorks Animation’s intentionally cartoony style but they use movement to give him a life beyond a few silly pixels. It’s easy to imagine Toothless as your own loyal hound (I couldn’t help but see my English Spaniel in the way he begs for food) while at the same time getting the sense of danger and destruction he’s capable of. It’s masterful visual characterization, and Toothless is just one of the brightest spots in a bright and beautiful film.
How to Train Your Dragon is filled with great characters and Jay Baruchel’s voice work as Hiccup is an ideal fit for the film’s dweeby, awkward lead character. Gerard Butler is gruff and funny and frightening all at once as Hiccup’s Viking father Stoick and TV talk show host Craig Ferguson, in a surprising turn, steals scenes as Hiccup’s demented mentor Gobber. Ok, maybe Vikings don’t strictly speaking have Scottish accents, but this is pure fantasy and a good one.
If there’s a problem with Dragon it’s that I wanted more of it. They’ve kept the story almost excessively simple, stripped it down, and allowed a lot of key moments to happen off camera. This could have easily been a two and a half hour epic but DreamWorks, perhaps sometimes a little too focused on catering to kids, stops at a surface level, glossing over more complex elements of the story to focus in on adventure. But who doesn’t like adventure? How to Train You Dragon soars to epic heights. It’s DreamWorks’ best movie since Kung Fu Panda and maybe even, second only to Panda, their best work so far. Those two movies represent a new level of work at DreamWorks, the kind of filmmaking capable at last of going head to head with the established greatness of Pixar and, in some respects, bettering them. More of this DreamWorks. More of this.
3) I love the movie so I will give it 4.5/5. The characters are well-developed and created, each giving us a vivid mind on their characteristics and appearance. The dragons are also cute and it is kids-friendly as it doesn't look as scary. The background was scenic and the 3D effects are really marvelous. The show was funny too! Even my always serious Dad laughed a lot during the movie. Hahaha. No joke! It really stands out from all the other 3D movies. The colours are wonderful and I really love the whole movie. The sound effects were great too! At the end of the story, it has a happy and a little bit of sad ending. Happy ending: All the dragons unite together with the Vikings and Hiccup got together with Asterid at last. Hiccup saved the day and his father was proud of him. Sad Ending: After saving his village friends from the humongous and fierce dragon, he ended up losing a leg and had to rely only on one leg and a new artificial leg. The moral of the story? Well, we humans are very cruel. Animals do kill humans due to survival sometimes. Besides, they rarely kill us unless they are in threat. Hence, if we are to calculate, actually, humans kill more animals than they kill us. They may kill hundreds of humans yearly. But we kill them thousands yearly! That's the big difference! That's why some of them are endangered, on the verge of extinction! Therefore, we have to care for the animals and try not yo kill them. If there are no animals in this world, the eco-system will go hay-wire and we won't be able to survive! Plants will not grow as the animals are the ones that spread its seedlings. Animals are the ones that provide us food and drink: milk. We must not kill sharks for their fins or whales for their oil or countless other reasons. They are endless! Just imagine yourself being a tiger, being shot by a hunter, FOR YOUR FUR! Care for the animals, and they won't bite. Overall, I love the movie and I really don't mind watching again. Especially in 3D!!! (my opinion)
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