How to Train Your Dragon

Rating: 7.5/10

Genre: Animation

Overall value for money and time: 7.5/10

Story: 3/5

Comedy: 2.5/5

Light-heartedness: 3/5 (with a couple of shocks)

Soundtrack: 3.5/5

Cuteness: 4/5

Plot development: 3.5/5

After the disappointing 3D experience of Clash of the Titans, I wasn't expecting much from this movie. But I didn't have much of a choice because when I caught it, there were no more 2D versions of it on screen. For once, in a long while of movie-viewings, I was not disappointed. It wasn't fantastic though, I felt that the story links and flow could have been better, but it definitely was one of the better animations I've caught.

Hiccup, the son of the Viking village leader, is a young and timid Viking hoping to slay his first dragon so that his dad will take him seriously. Things took on a twist of events when he befriends the most elusive and scariest dragon the Vikings have known to fear... The Night Fury, only to find out that his people have greatly misjudged dragons. Slowly, he starts to train the night fury, which he calls toothless, and builds a bond of friendship which may forever change the ties between humans and dragons.

The dragons were cute and the characters each had a unique quality about them. It was a light hearted movie with a couple of shock scenes, and had a good handful of funny moments in it. The character development could have been better, *spoilers ahead* especially the part where Hiccup's father apologised to him felt too un-relating. I didn't feel much for the characters and some parts of the movie was too convenient and rushed. There were also a couple of points which didn't make sense to me... one of which being how did Hiccup know the way to kill the Dragon Boss at the end?

The soundtrack didn't go well with the movie, it was good, but felt "adult-like" even though the animation was more "child-like". All in all, I liked the movie as a whole and personally, I think this is one of the few breakthrough movies of Dreamworks. I'm so glad they're gearing it up to compete with Pixar to bring us better animations in hope that in the future, their movies will only go one way... Up.