Sexuality/Nudity Acceptable
Violence Acceptable
Vulgarity Acceptable
Anti-Catholic Philosophy Acceptable
For anyone who has seen the original How to Train Your Dragon, this movie will hold no suprises.
But sometimes, that's a good thing.
The story is exactly the same as the animated film: on the Viking island of Berk, the people are constantly attacked by dragons. Hiccup (Mason Thames) is the son of the hulking Chieftain Stoick (Gerard Butler, reprising his role from the original). Unlike his father, he is sheepish, meek, and pensive rather than assertive and physically imposing. Hiccup happens to down the scariest dragon of all: a Night Fury. But when Hiccup finds it in the woods, he finds he cannot kill it and slowly the two become friends. Meanwhile, Hiccup is forced into training as a Dragon Fighter along with the other young people of his village:
Astrid (Nico Parker): the girlboss warrior that Hiccup is in love with.
Snotlout (Gabriel Howell): machismo-fueled boy who wants his father's attention and Astrid's affection.
Fishlegs (Julian Dennison): overweight and timid Dragon nerd
Ruffnut (Bronwyn James) and Tuffnut (Harry Trevaldwyn): idiot twins.
All the while, Hiccup learns more about dragons he inadvertently advances in his Dragon Fighter training. This puts him on a collision course between his love of dragons and the villages hatred of dragons.
Just like the original film, this is a movie that gets better as it goes. Everything in the beginning is very cartoonish and standard children's story fare. But as the story continues, we get to see Hiccup grow up into a man. This movie also does one of the things that I love, which is that the finale draws together all of the plot, character, and story elements into a convergence. This is such an important and basic part of storytelling that so few movies doe well anymore.
What recommends seeing this movie if it is so similar to the animated? I would have to say that the visuals are gorgeous. The flying scenes alone are worth the price of admission. Director Dean DeBlois wisely filmed as much as possible on location. The island of Berk is so beautiful that you can understand why people who stay and fight for it even with the dragon problem. Perhaps the backgrounds were all CGI for the flying scenes. But instead a great deal of it felt like they photographed drone footage and used that. Whether or not this is the case, the scenes with Hiccup and his dragon Toothless flying across the island feel tangible and thrilling.
I also love the fact that this movie has something to say about masculinity and the relationship between fathers and sons.
Part of the conceit of the film is that many of the characters, especially the younger ones, behave not like historical Vikings but by 21st Century teenagers, which is fine. At first it feels like Hiccup is a beta-male weak boy who slavishly follows Astrid. In what they do with this relationship is interesting and feels a bit more developed than the animated. She is a girlboss, but the film wisely shows this as a strength and a weakness. She is excellent at fighting and strategy. But she has a gigantic chip on her shoulder and has the need to dominate everything. At one point she tells Hiccup that she will be chieftain one day instead of him. She smirks at him waiting to come back with some sniveling response. Instead he tells her that she would be a great chieftain and you can see the disappointment on her face. This relationship is complicated.
But the most complicated relationship is between Hiccup and Stoick. The world they live in is violent and dangerous. Stoick's wife (Hiccup's mother) has already been lost. Stoick is burdened with the weight of responsibility and needs his son to learn to carry the burden. But he tries to mold him in the only way he knows how: the way Stoick was raised. But Hiccup is not like his father. He admires him and wants to be like him, but he is not. Hiccup thinks things can be different and better. Because of this, they aren't able to communicate. There is something very powerful and primal about this. I think most men feel like their fathers are giants and they will never live up to them. But I think that growing up most of us also feel like our fathers don't see the type of men we want to be and are misunderstood. This fantastic tension is constantly at play in the movie as Stoick tries to make Hiccup a man.
Later in the movie after discovering Hiccup's secret she confronts him about sharing it with the village. But Hiccup refuses. She asks him if he is really willing to go against his father and everyone else in the village. Hiccup does not raise his voice, but he very resolutely makes his stand. What I love about this moment is that Hiccup finds his manhood. And his masculinity is like and unlike Stoick's. He isn't physically imposing. But he finds something worth fighting for and he makes his stand regardless of the consequences. One of the things that makes this scene work so well is that you can see that Astrid really sees Hiccup for the first time and the chip on her shoulder falls off. She is willing to follow his lead while not losing any of her own strength.
The performances tend to be a bit broad, but this works for the movie. Thames has to carry the movie and he does that very well. The production design capture much of the animated. The wisely kept Toothless' design almost untouched, with his gigantic, innocent eyes. The John Powell score is as powerful as ever and gave me chills.
I know that a lot of parents worry about the bait and switch that studios like Disney have done lately, where they offer a movie as family-friendly, but then they introduce adult themes. Disney could learn from How to Train your Dragon. Here you have something that is safe for the family and will end with everyone felling good.
And that is my best recommendation for the film.
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