How To Train Your Dragon "Everything we know about you guys is wrong"

I am not going to lie, Dreamworks Animation is not my favorite studio. They ruined the Shrek franchise with 3 and 4 which were absolutely dreadful. Then they made garbage like Bee Movie, Over The Hedge, and Shark Tale. It is sad because at the same time they have done great movies like Prince Of Egypt and Kung Fu Panda. So I had been weary to see this movie, worried that it would also turn out to be a major disaster. After seeing the awesome Kung Fu Panda 2 though, I decided to give this movie a chance and see how it did. Hopefully this movie would change my mind on Dreamworks Animation, but did it? Read on to find out...

How To Train Your Dragon (HTTYD) is about a viking named Hiccup who is different from the other vikings. He is small and very lightweight while the others are fighters and strong men. Their village must survive by fighting off dragons and protecting their food for winter so if you can't fight you are seen as worthless in the eyes of the vikings. Unfortunately his father is the leader of the Vikings and Hiccup feels that he must prove to his dad his worth but shooting down the terrifying Night Fury. When he successfully takes down the dragon, he realizes that he cannot kill it and sets it free. The dragon though lost half of his tail wing and cannot fly anymore. Hiccup decides to help by building him a replacement wing and taming him at the same time. Hiccup and Night Fury, or Toothless, form a strong friendship and Hiccup learns along the way that dragons are not furious creatures but animals that are trying to survive just like the vikings. So Hiccup and Toothless must change the way of the Vikings and save the day before either humans or the dragons destroy one another.

I must admit I was very surprised by HTTYD. It was a very touchy story that had a lot of heart to it. At the same time it was hilarious to watch for both adults and young. It was nice to see Dreamworks be in top form. Here is my message for Dreamworks, keep making movies like this. Throw away the cheap laugh kid films and keep making touchy films that can reach both young and old.

Now to begin why this film was awesome. First off the visuals are awesome! This and Kung Fu Panda 2 show off how awesome Dreamworks can dominate animation. The fly scenes felt so realistic and it was like flying through a painting. At the same time, even the simplistic things like hair was big step up from previous Dreamworks' attempts. The highlight is when Hiccup and Toothless take Astrid up for a ride and go up with the sun right behind them, it was speechless. Plus the action sequences are pretty nice, fun, exciting and tense which is all you want.

Also this movie has a damn good storyline. It deals with being different from everyone around you and disappointment. Dreamworks was smart to use Hiccup to teach a smart life lesson, when you are different don't feel bad for it but embrace it. When Hiccup finally embraces hi differences, he dominates his training and get to tame the Night Fury and gets the girl. It also is a good perspective film that explores that sometimes the things we hunt are just trying to survive as much as we are.

Overall this movie was well done. It did have some problems, it did feel too fast at points and I wish they would slow down instead of forcing it. Also Astrid at points didn't make too much sense but overall these were problems I was willing to overlook because I was enjoying this film too much. Go watch it and enjoy the ride. 4/5