Description: From the creators of Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda comes How To Train Your Dragon, an animated adventure comedy set in a mythical world of burly vikings and wild dragons, based on the book by Cressida Cowell.
The story centres around a viking teenager, who lives on the island of Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life. Initiation is coming, and this is his one chance to prove his worthiness to his tribe and father. But when he encounters, and ultimately befriends, an injured dragon, his world is turned upside down.
My review: I took my 3 children to watch this today, this has been out a while and it only has 2 showings left at our local cinema. This was an absolute treat to watch! My children are 4, 7 and 9 years old and all of them loved it, including me!
The story is based around young 'Hiccup' (yes, even Vikings gave their kids cruel names!) he's not the image of a burly, strapping Viking, no, not like his father, Chief Stoick the Vast, he's a bit of a 'let down' to his father and the Viking tribe, so he works in the 'weapons' department, under the watchful eye of seasoned warrior Gobber the Belch, instead of swinging them at Dragons, who terrorize the village, he helps to make them.
BUT, time is coming when he must 'come of age' and take the plunge to become a true Viking, kill his first dragon and make his mark. But that's not what Hiccup is wanting to do, he's more into using his brain than, building and, using brawn. After he manages to bring a dragon down, with a self-made contraption, during an attack, he tracks down where it landed and finds he can't bring himself to kill the beast. On letting the dragon free, he and the dragon forge a friendship and end up helping one another out.
The warriors of the tribe go to war with the dragons, sailing to the island to try to infiltrate the nest and hoping to cull the firey aggressors. Whilst the warriors are away the younger generation of the tribe must be brought to fighting and warrior standards, under the training of Gobber and a few trapped dragons (why practise against something false when you can go against the real thing?!). Hiccup is among the yougsters and in his spare time is tending to and learning from 'Tootless' the rare and most intelligent 'Night Fury' Dragon he caught. He learns things from Tootless and tries them against his opponents in the ring, during training, which leads to some intriguing discoveries about the Dragons that none of the Vikings knew of before.
The animation is wonderful, totally trasporting you into the film. The story is beautiful, amusing, thrilling and heartfelt. It's a movie I could definately be 'dragged along to' again, without a murmur.
The soundtrack is brilliant and is something I'm now going to be on the lookout for, during the end credits is a track by Jonsi (whom I LOVE) called 'Sticks and stones', that was a great little surprise for me at the end. All in all, it's a film I would recommend to anyone of any age and it's not childish, it's beautiful, uplifting and worth watching.
Official website for 'How to train your dragon'.
No comments:
Post a Comment