Unbored

I have been rather sluggish with my updates recently… but to be fair, technically, part of my face started to rot, I think that grants me a week off at least.

How to Train your Dragon is Paramount and Dreamworks’ latest offering in the whole 3D cinema malarkey, which follows Hiccup, a young Viking who lives on an island where the children are American and the adults are all Scottish. What is it with Vikings and Scottish accents anyway? I know they’re vaguely related, but wouldn’t it be more accurate to give them Scandinavian accents? Anyway, the island is constantly attacked by dragons and the Vikings have all become rather good at killing the creatures in return. Desperate to not be the only non combatant Viking ever, Hiccup manages to shoot down one of the attacking dragons with a net, only to find that he can’t even finish the job when he finds the captured beast.  Hiccup finds himself torn between raising the injured dragon that he ironically names ‘Toothless’ and being trained to hunt and kill dragons with the other kids in the tribe.

Hiccup is likeable enough, and Toothless manages to be both terrifying and adorable at the same time… But the true star of this movie has to be Gerard Butler as the Scottish Viking warrior chief, Stoick-the-Vast. Gerard has taken the voice of Leonidas from 300 and toned down the shouting a bit, every time Stoick is on screen he is either tearing something to pieces or delivering some of the best lines. Even though he is arguably the villain of this film, he manages to be incredibly sympathetic and you can’t help but like him. Unfortunately we also have to put up with Gobber, our resident Shrek impersonation by Craig Fergusson, he managed to annoy me every time he was on screen simply for being an impression of Shrek. It wasn’t too bad and Gerard’s performance more than made up for it. It’s just there are other Scottish voices out there you know?

As per usual, the animation is exceptional, and will remain that way until next years CGI movies are released. That being said, some of the direction and action set-pieces are incredibly well made, it’s not Kung-Fu Panda good, but it’s still rather good nonetheless. Toothless and the other dragons are very well done as well, their body language and the sounds they make manage to be both familiar enough to identify with them, and alien enough to not make you feel they’re just dogs with scales and a blowtorch cellotaped to their faces.

Now… the 3D. When I went to see Up in 3D I vowed to never bother with it again, and then everyone said Avatar was only worth seeing in 3D (it wasn’t.) But this preview screening was in 3D as well, and it wasn’t like I had to pay extra for it. It’s not bad or gimmicky like in Avatar, it’s more like Up where it’s completely superfluous to your enjoyment of the film. It pulls a couple of cool tricks once or twice, but the rest of the time you’re too absorbed in the story to really care about the effects. Which I guess is testament to this films quality. So don’t bother paying for the 3D, it will be more than good enough without the stupid glasses and the flicker-o-vision.

It’s not ground-breaking or a big must-see, but it’s good fun and it has Vikings in it, and what more can you need? If you’re going to the cinema before Iron Man 2 or the new Shrek come out, give this a look.