How to Train Your Dragon is the newest DreamWorks Animation movie, directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, starring the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Plot:
A Viking village. Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is the son of the Chief Stoick (Gerard Butler) and dreams about slaying dragons like all the rest. Unfortunately for all the rest, Hiccup has a knack for building machinery and is incredibly clumsy. One day, Hiccup manages to actually down a dragon – and one of the infamous Night Furies. But nobody believes him, so he sets out to find and kill it. But when he does find it, he is not able to hurt the creature. Instead the two of them slowly strike up a friendship.

Oh, oh, oh, the cuteness of it all! Toothless is probably the sweetest pet ever. I was afraid that all the good scenes were already in the trailer and that it would get pretty old pretty fast, but I was proven wrong there. The only thing that was mildly annoying was how they used the accents.

First off, to clarify: I don’t mind that the Vikings spoke with a Scottish accent [in fact, every Scottish accent I hear makes me irrationally happy], though I did wonder why exactly they would. What was weird was that the adults spoke with a Scottish accent and the kids did not. Do you acquire a rolling R with your 18th birthday in that world or how else can you explain that?
It’s not a horrible, horrible thing but it did bug me. Especially since it made the characters kids weren’t supposed to identify with foreign/other again.

Anyway, it was nice to see hear Gerard Butler in a watchable movie again. And Jay Baruchel really was great as Hiccup. The other actors for the kids did a nice job, but nothing that really stood out.

The story is really very sweet. It follows the regular kids’ movies structure and is therefore not surprising but very satisfying nevertheless.

But the real star of the film are the visuals. I saw it in 3D which I can definitely recommend. [In fact, we didn’t get the choice between 3D or not 3D, I don’t know if they just did away in general with 2D showings of 3D movies or just in that cinema.] But even if you saw it in 2D, there are some breathtaking shots. There’s the risk of those shot feeling out of place but it never goes that far.

Summarising: Definitely recommended, for kids and adults who didn’t forget that they were kids once, too.