How to Train Your Dragon Review

On a very long flight overseas during the summer of 2010, I got to watch a couple of movies that were no longer in theaters, but not yet on home video. Among these was How to Train Your Dragon (2010). It was such a delightfully fun movie that it made me forget that I was tightly crammed into a flying metal tube with a hundred other people being flung across an ocean. It is easily my favorite Dreamworks movie to date.

Long ago up North on the Island of Berk, the young Viking, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), wants to join his town's fight against the dragons that continually raid their town. However, his stubborn father and village leader, Stoik the Vast (Gerard Butler), will not allow his small, clumsy, but inventive son to do so. Regardless, Hiccup ventures out into battle and downs a mysterious Night Fury dragon with his invention, but can't bring himself to kill it. Instead, Hiccup and the dragon, whom he dubs Toothless, begin a friendship that would open up both their worlds as the observant boy learns that his people have misjudged the species. But even as the two each take flight in their own way, they find that they must fight the destructive ignorance plaguing their world.

After a number of mediocre Dreamworks movies released over the previous couple of years, How to Train Your Dragon was an unexpectedly delightful change of pace. The characters were fantastic, the story was interesting, the theme was wonderful, the animation was stellar. That's quite a step up from titles like Bee Movie and Shrek the Third.

Hiccup is a fish out of water. He's not the big, burly, aggressive type that virtually everyone in village is. He's small, skinny, has a deadpan, sarcastic sense of humor, and tends to be resourceful instead of forceful. He resorts to constructing gizmos to help him achieve the same physical feats his fellow villagers do, but his intuition isn't appreciated. Stoick is a fierce, immensely strong and utterly fearless warrior. He's also very stubborn and seems to think the world should work according to the way he perceives it. He's a character with which we can identify, but not one that is easy to love initially. Needless to say, Hiccup and Stoick don't see eye-to-eye.

Then there is Toothless. Toothless may be a dragon, but he's possibly the most endearing character in the movie. The way he moves is a lot like a playful cat. He has highly expressive yellow eyes that contrast his black color beautifully and help illustrate the many facial expressions Toothless has. The sounds he makes are adorable, but ferocious when they need to be. The sounds used to voice Toothless are a combination of Supervising Sound Designer Randy Thom, elephant Seals, elephants, horses, tigers, and domestic cats. There is a very important quality to the Toothless character that is missing from so many of Hollywood's contemporary animated characters; an air of mystery. This isn't just a funny animal sidekick, he's a major character in the movie who plays a significant part in the plot's development.

The story and theme were delightful. It's a bit fast paced as it is primarily aimed at children with short attention spans. Nevertheless, it features an invigorating coming-of-age story of surprising depth paired with a sweetly poignant tale of friendship between man and animal. It delves into the ideas of empathy and taking the initiative to learn about what you don't understand so as to peacefully coexist. If we take our initial impressions of others as objective fact, it causes us to be shortsighted, intolerant, and even hostile against those we don't understand. Thematically, this is similar to both Frozen and ParaNorman, though How to Train Your Dragon has its own take on interpersonal conflict that should not be overlooked.

The animation is top notch. The texture of skin, clothing, dragon scales, water, and everything else looked amazing. I've already mentioned the charming way Toothless moved, but every character moved in a way that was cartoonish enough to be funny, but not so wacky as to be unrealistic. The camera work was phenomenal as well. How to Train Your Dragon has some of the best action sequences I've seen in a CGI animated film. Everything from the angle of the shot to the speed of the editing projects an end visual that feels like you're either riding on Toothless' back or you get an outsider perspective on just how fast he's flying. It's positively brilliant.

How to Train Your Dragon is easily the best Dreamworks animated feature to date, and possibly one of the best dragon movies ever made. It boasts dazzling animation and a script with a surprising dramatic depth which mixes comedic and touching moments. Instead of relying on dizzying gimmicks, this movie revels in sheer heart-pumping pleasure of watching action unfold and lets us genuinely enjoy some charming characters. It's take on the message about tolerance and realizing your enemy may not be as different as you think puts it in a higher quality bracket than other CGI animated films. I love this movie. I've been telling myself for years to get my own copy; this is absolutely worth having in your own home collection.

What is the best dragon movie you've ever seen? Comment below and tell me why!

The Sorcerer's Apprentice Movie Review

In the wondrous world of marketing, a title becomes grounds for several different media types. For example, the book Eragon by Christopher Paolini hit shelves in 2003, and then a movie hit theaters in 2006; then in the wake of the movie an Eragon video game was released on several game systems. Do not play video games based on a movie based on a book; they are all lousy! I have never before seen a chain of “based on” titles that originated with 18^th century classical music. The Sorcerer's Apprentice, directed by Jon Turteltaub, is a movie based on Disney’s Fantasia (1940) segment, which was based on a late 1890s symphonic poem by Paul Dukas and the 1797 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ballad.

The story starts off in 740 AD when one of Merlin’s apprentices, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina), betrays Merlin and joins evil sorceress Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige). Morgana mortally wounds Merlin before being stopped by another apprentice, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage), who imprisons Morgana in the Grimhold, a magic prison similar to a nesting doll. Before dying, Merlin gives Balthazar a dragon ring that will identify the Prime Merlinean, Merlin's successor who will be the only one able to defeat Morgana. Throughout history Balthazar imprisons other Morganians, including Horvath, into successive layers on the Grimhold while searching for Merlin’s successor. Balthazar finally finds him in 2010, a young physics student named Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel). Dave had accidentally released Horvath from the Grimhold a few years prior, and he now hunts down Dave to locate the Grimhold and release Morgana. Should Morgana be released, she intends to revive all the dead Morganians and destroy the world. Balthazar must find the Grimhold before Horvath does, and train Dave in the ways of science and magic so that Dave can become a true sorcerer and save the world.

This movie is so dreadfully formulaic that attempting to expound upon the characters or storyline would be redundant. It’s almost as though Disney has this one story and set of characters that they keep using for different movies. You can accurately predict what each scene will accomplish and even what the following scene will be.  Seriously, you have seen this movie and these characters before. I’m deliriously in love with the idea of fantasy elements in a modern world setting, and this movie does have that going for it. Horvath was a pretty nasty villain, but with the movie being rated PG. You know he’s not really going to follow through with his dastardly threats; people rarely die in PG movies. One of the better parts of the movie was when Dave tries to bring to life some brooms and mops to clean his physics lab, which has similar results to Mickey Mouse’s dilemma in Fantasia. This whole movie concept may have started with the idea of making a live action adaptation of that Mickey Mouse classic.

So why watch The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? Because it is really fun! The story and characters were terrible, but the visual effects were highly creative and entertaining. There was a constantly changing variety of magic being used; some were subtle like unfolding a gigantic spell book from a tiny pocket size square, to transforming a Chinatown Dragon Dance puppet into a real dragon. It was very exciting. I also liked how magic was developed as being similar to science. To get something to light up in flames, you had to focus on making the molecules speed up, creating heat, which sets something on fire. My favorite scene was the chase scene through New York City; there were creative, unexpected magical stunts were thrown at each other at rapid-fire speeds. The movie kept you guessing as to what abstract visuals they were going to pull on each other next. That kept the movie fresh and fun to watch.

This movie was not a profound example of meaningful cinema. The story and characters in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice were really weak, but the creative implementation of magic kept it interesting and fun. It was predictable, but the visuals kept you guessing. This is a great movie for a family movie night; kids will love it and adults will enjoy it too, if they aren’t too put off by the formulaic storytelling. It’s a renter, but I may get a copy just because I like fantasy in a modern setting so much.


Is there a movie you’ve seen that was good only because the special effects were impressive? What was it? Comment below and tell me all about it!