How to Train Your Dragon

The basic story is that a young Viking, from the North on the Island of Berk, who was keen on hunting trolls, gets his opportunity at an elusive dragon. When he confronts his Viking ways, he must decide for himself whether to dispatch his prey or come to an understanding of the true nature of the beast. If you own cats, you can see the dilemma and the conflict. Not that any feline is in danger of being dispatched. There is nothing unique about this movie. The story is as old as the hills. The animation, while not intrusive to the message, is not unique either. There are no new truths or insights or anything. The standard minnis and a boy are coming of age, with others attempting to do so also. It is refreshing to find the single-family parent is the father; however, it is the old single-parent family conflict. The one big flaw in the story is that the only dragon that could use befriending was targeted for dispatching by everyone, including fellow dragons; what kind of message does that send? I have to admit I did not read the book, so I cannot compare the book/movie. On the positive side, they picked some good voices (see the DVD extras) for the individual characters. They did not constantly bombard the movie with unrelated background music. Their attempt at cute contemporary dialogue works pretty well. The dialogue was not dumbed down as most of the later Disney movies were. For the technically inclined, I watched the Blu-ray version but not the 3D. Nothing against 3D, I just have a fancy TV yet. The disk ran well in the Sony player. I did not try it on my other players.