Super Frat

The movie is as good as the hype. How to Train Your Dragon (not to be confused with the porn version, How to Drain Your Dragon) is awesome. The basic plot, a young Viking (voice by Jay Baruchel from She’s Out of Your League) named Hiccup is the outcast, the only nerd in a village of Viking jocks. While Hiccup builds crossbows and reads, the rest of the village prepares for slaying dragons. When Hiccup stumbles upon an opportunity to actually interact with a live dragon without actually fighting it, it changes everything.

If you can forgive the historically inaccurate accents and sometimes dialogue (and you can), the movie is pretty spot on. It creates a world and then pretty much sticks to the rules of that world. If I had to point a minor complaint, the Vikings talk about killing “thousands of dragons” but you never see the evidence of that. It’s kind of like watching the old Saturday morning cartoon (I’m really dating myself her) Thundarr the Barbarian. Thundarr has an awesome sun sword that could cut through anything and he was, supposedly, bloodthirsty enough to cut anyone in half. Of course, the only time he stabbed people was when they turned out to be robots. Dragon plays out like that, but you can forgive it.

The design is great, the world leaves more room for a sequel and the characters were pretty awesome. Granted, it follows the usual pattern of these kinds of movies, but the pacing and the action are such that you won’t care. There are a lot of fun sequences during the dragon training school. Kids and bros alike will enjoy it.

I give How to Train Your Dragon 9 out of 10 keggers. Well worth seeing and the sequel is in the works.