How To Train Your Dragon

Watching this movie was really just a "chance" encounter. My parents were attending a conference and Mom suggested I see if any movies were playing at the theatre near the conference center. I called the theatre and the only PG and under movies that were playing were "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and "How To Train Your Dragon". I KNEW I didn't want to see "Wimpy Kid", so I decided to go to "How To Train Your Dragon".

At first, I thought I was in "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." The movie is set in a viking town. Everyone (and I do mean everyone) is expected to kill the dragons that regularly attack the village. The village's chief, Stoick, is the leader of the viking and a well-accomplished dragon killer himself. His son, Hiccup, on the other hand is skinny and little. Hiccup would love to kill dragons, but because of his size, no one allows him to train. He uses his spare time to build inventions, especially dragon killing ones.

One attack on the village leaves Hiccup unguarded and he pulls out his newest invention and shoots at a deadly Night Fury, a dragon so dangerous, no one has been able to engage it in battle and lived to tell about them. To his own amazement, Hiccup manages to trap the Night Fury. When he tries to tell his dad and mentor about it, they just laugh at him.

Upset, he leaves (without his father's permission) to go find the Night Fury. When he finds it, he pulls his knife to kill it. But is unable to kill the dragon. Instead he frees it.

The rest of the film focuses on Hiccup learning the true reason for the dragons' attacks and joining the warring vikings and misunderstood dragons.

PROS
~In the end, Stoick and Hiccup become a good father/son team. The Hiccup learns to respect his father. And Stoick realizes that sometimes, Hiccup has good ideas. Usually movies accomplish this through backtalk and the father realizing he's been wrong his whole life and of course his son has been absolutely right and he should have listened to him in the first place. Thankfully, this movie does not approach it that way. Stoick is a Viking and vikings fight and there is no apology for that. However, Stoick does realize that his son has learned the dragons' true reason for attacking and listens to him.
~During their journey to understanding, it is always known that Stoick love his son and truly cares for him.
~The village learns to work together for something, rather than fight for themselves
~Toothless, the dragon Hiccup captures and lets go, is as loyal a friend as you can ask for. He is kind and sharing (even if it is half a fish he's swallowed and brought back up again). He is also willing to sacrifice his life for Hiccup. And he is quite endearing on top of that!

CONS
~There are no ladies in this film. Just male vikings and female vikings. The women fight alongside the men and are not treated as ladies to be protected.
~Hiccup lies to his father and his mentor and other viking apprentices in order to keep Toothless a secret. However, he later admits that he was wrong.
~After a big fight with his father, Hiccups thinks about running away.
~As Hiccup learns more about dragons and what they're afraid of and what pleases them, he uses that knowledge to trick those in Dragon Training school into thinking he can kill dragons. It all backfires when he's chosen to kill a dragon in front of the village.
~

LANGUAGE
~There are five uses of words I would consider bad language.
~There are no uses of the Lord's name in vain. However, being vikings, they call on the names of Norse gods quite a bit.
~Stoick gives Hiccup a viking helmut which he describes as half of Hiccup's mother's breastplate.

IMMORALITY
~Hiccup has a crush on one of the viking girls in his class causing some comments from others in the class and well as a couple of kissses between the two.

RATING
PG for sequences of intense action and some scary images and brief mild language.



And there you have it. The Top 3rd movie playing in the box office now.

Have you seen it?

Tiffany