Resolutions 2016: How to Train Your Dragon

Hello, hello, and welcome to yet another lovely guest film resolution for my Resolutions series! It truly has been a great one so far, and the great resolutions continue today! The lovely Miss Zoë of The Sporadic Chronicles of a Beginner Blogger is here to discuss a film that I may or may not have bullied her into watching, as it is one of my favorite animated films ever. Maybe. (I totally did.) Let’s see what she thought of it shall we?

SYNOPSIS: A hapless young Viking who aspires to hunt dragons, becomes the unlikely friend of a young dragon himself, and learns there may be more to the creatures than he assumed. – via IMDB

Is it Resolutions time again? My, oh my, how the time has flown! Well, Resolutions has become synonymous with my one animated feature for the year, and this year I chose to look into How To Train Your Dragon, because hey, how can you go wrong with Vikings and dragons, right? Right?

Well, you can. For starters, you could use Jay Baruchel to voice Hiccup. I wanted to throw something at my screen whenever he spoke. Gosh, he sounded constantly whiny! I had to get that off my chest before I continued on to the other things of the movie.  How To Train Your Dragon was a typical animated movie – a tad soppy, some silly humour, a story to tell and a lesson to teach. Yep, ticked all those boxes, but somehow it was just not my favourite animation of all time. I know I might well get stoned for it. While it was fun, it felt so long. I mean heck, watching this movie I managed to do my nails, screw one up completely, start it from scratch (mind you, that’s a base coat, two coats of polish and a top coat) and it was still done before the first hour was up. I just don’t get it!

Maybe I just expect too much from Vikings and dragons in general. Seriously. This could be a thing.

The animation style wasn’t my favourite, either. It was alright, but there were times (I am looking at the ropes here specifically) that just didn’t look right, and that just annoyed me. It was like a whole different style. What I did like, however, was the whole concept of learning to understand dragons. Plus, well, dragons. You can’t really go wrong with them. Not to mention Gerard Butler voicing Stoick, who dropped gems like “Thor Almighty” and “Odin, it was rough” and such all over the show, which really had me going. Plus Stoick’s face was ridiculously expressive. He was a great character, and I almost wished I had seen more of him, but on the other hand I am worried that more of him might very well have killed the character for me. I also enjoyed the peg-legged Gobber, who was a whole different kettle of fish on his own. Fishlegs is also a character I appreciated – super geeky and always quoting books and stats like a real gamer geek (seriously, I knew way too many that played way to much World of Warcraft for way too long).

Then there is Toothless, the beloved dragon. I mean super beloved. For everyone. But me. It’s like… he was sweet but totally not what I was expecting at all. I kept on waiting for the Skyrim tune to pop up when Toothless was owning, but alas, I would never, ever be as fortunate! I think this feeling was exacerbated by my fiancé sitting on the couch, watching Toothless take off, listening to the score of the film and then falling in line with it and belting the Skyrim tune. Toothless is sweet, and he and Hiccup work well together, but I just feel like something was missing. Or my expectations had been skyrocketed through the roof. I don’t know… it just fell a bit flat for me ultimately. I thought that the whole relationship between Astrid and Hiccup was rushed, but then, this movie isn’t aimed at adults who notice plot holes and silly happenstances.

Aside from all that, it wasn’t bad… it just wasn’t great either. I don’t know if I’m getting too old for this stuff, or because I expect more brutality from Vikings and dragons. This is definitely movie a kids are going to love the hell out of, because dragons. No matter what age you are, they will always be the most awesome things. I know this review sounds harsh (in retrospect), but How To Train Your Dragon is not a bad movie, it just isn’t my movie, which I expected it to be due to the content possibilities. Lady, thank you ever so kindly for hosting Resolutions 2016 (I hope there are many more years of this to come), and I hope you have a great, successful year ahead!

Thanks so much, Zoë! This was such a fantastic review that I suppose I can forgive you for not thinking it’s the most adorably wonderful film ever. 😉 Got another one coming on Friday! See you then!

Advertisement