During the opening moments of How to Train Your Dragon, its young hero, a Viking boy with the unlikely and unfortunate name of Hiccup (voice by Jay Baruchel) introduces us to his home village of Berk. It's a place where his people have lived for hundreds of years. During that time, they've also been tormented by the other main inhabitants on the island the Vikings call home. "A pest problem", he calls it. The pests being dragons.

There's a lot of dragons, apparently, in different sizes, shapes, and abilities. There are the traditional fire-breathers, of course, but there are also ones that spray acid, some that can burn you with scalding hot water breath, and some that can even kill you with their violent and thunderous roaring screams. They swoop into the village, taking livestock and sheep back to their nest. The Vikings have battled these beasts for years, but there is one particular type of dragon they know little to nothing about. It is perhaps the most dangerous of all, as it flies so fast it can hardly be seen, and attacks just as quickly. It's been dubbed the "Night Fury" by Hiccup's clan. Naturally, in the village of Berk, knowing about dragons and how to slay them is everything. That's probably why young Hiccup is considered an outcast. He doesn't fit in with the rest of his people, as he's scrawny, kind of short, and not very skilled with a weapon and a shield. The fact that he's the only son to the village chief and champion dragon slayer, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), puts him at a particular disadvantage.

Wanting a chance to prove himself, Hiccup becomes determined to accomplish what no one has done before - bring down and kill the dreaded Night Fury. Through a stroke of luck, he actually manages to bring down the creature when he shoots it out of the sky with a crude weapon he made. When he finds the dragon lying wounded and helpless in the middle of a woodland clearing, he finds he cannot finish it off. He sees something in the dragon's eyes, and maybe the creature does in him as well, as it spares his life when he sets it free. The Night Fury dragon can no longer fly, due to its injuries, so Hiccup sees the opportunity to not only aid the creature (which seems more intelligent and aware than his people have ever believed dragons could be), but to also understand it, creating an unlikely bond. It's a traditional "boy and his dog" story, only How to Train Your Dragon adds an extra layer of smart and funny dialogue, genuine heart and warmth, as well as an exciting visual style that actually benefits from the 3D technology, so it's not just a gimmick.

In the long-standing animation war between Dreamworks (the makers of Dragon) and Pixar, it's pretty much been accepted by fans that Pixar films generally have deeper characters and emotion, whereas Dreamworks centered on fast-paced gags, childish puns, and pop culture references. This movie could change a lot of people's perception on that, as it's easily the most character-driven and emotional cartoon to come out of the studio. The writing and directing team of Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois (Lilo and Stitch) have not only created a rousing and exciting adventure fable for kids, but have packed it with plenty of clever dialogue and emotion for adults to latch onto. The relationship between Hiccup and the dragon (whom he names "Toothless", due to the creature's retractable teeth) is of course at the center, and in the cinema's history of two different beings from different worlds coming together, I'd rank it right up there with the one in E.T. The filmmakers are wise to make the dragon likable and relatable, without making it overly cute. It can be threatening when it wants to. It holds great destructive power, and will fight back when it feels threatened. But, it can also be quite playful and charming when it is in the right mood. I dare anyone's heart not to melt when the dragon, overcome with rapture, rolls on its back in the grass like a dog.

In fact, I liked the way the film handled its wide variety of dragons. They come in different forms, sizes, and colors - all of them very imaginative. I also appreciated that the dragons acted like animals, not comic sidekicks. They do not belch or fart on command in order to amuse the younger members watching in the audience, and you really get a good sense of their world and the way they live, especially when the movie reveals just what goes on inside their nest. This is one of the rare films that gives you the feeling of not just a beautifully realized fantasy world visually, but also in the underlying structure, and how it was planned out by the filmmakers. The 3D visuals are naturally captivating, especially the sequences where young Hiccup takes flight on the dragon's back. Compared to the muddy and disappointing images in the recent Alice in Wonderland, this acts almost as a "how to" example for future filmmakers as to how films of this sort should be done.

It's not just the visual splendor that draws us in, fortunately. The characters are likable, the things they say often funny, and yes, the relationships between them are strong. Sure, we've seen them all before. There's the one between Hiccup and his father, and how the young Viking wants to live up to his father's expectations, but at the same time feels he is misunderstood. There's also the one Hiccup slowly builds with the female lead, Astrid (America Ferrera). They start as rivals in their dragon slaying class, but soon bond when she opens her eyes to his way of thinking, and that the dragons can be tamed and used as allies. And yet, even though we know what to expect, we care about these characters, because they've been written in such a bright fashion. One of the hardest things for a movie to do is to make old material seem fresh, and this one accomplishes it with a strong script, a stunning visual style, and characters we are immediately drawn to.
If there's any fault to be found here, it's the odd casting decision to have all the adult Vikings be voiced by actors with heavy Scottish accents, like Gerard Butler and late night talk show host Craig Ferguson (who gets a lot of laughs here), while having the younger Viking characters be voiced by young Hollywood types like Baruchel, Ferrera, and Jonah Hill. It'd be a major distraction in probably any other film, but How to Train Your Dragon is so energetic, likable, and sometimes even awe-inspiring, that you just don't care about the tiny details. I know that Toy Story 3 is on the summer horizon, but for now, this holds the animation crown for 2010.

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