Dreamworks Animation has it pretty tough. They make string after sting of 'almost good' movies, that are always animated beautifully, with interesting and original ideas... that usually involve talking animals. But they seem to never quite be at the Pixar level when it comes to storytelling and character development. How to Train Your Dragon started off as a refreshing change. The film begins with incredible action, funny sort-of relatable characters, and awesome dragons that don't talk. In fact certain clichés were dancing through my head like, "best animated film of the year," and "give Pixar a run for their money."...but then the movie fell apart.
I bought the world of dragon killing vikings versus the viking killing dragons (even though neither of them ate the other). But about halfway through the movie we find out the the dragons are under constant threat from some dragon-eating-mega-dragon-dictator of some kind. The dragons were compared to bees who gather food for their queen. This queen-bee dragon ruined the movie for me. Suddenly the dragons were victims who are forced to steal food from the vikings to feed their fascist leader. Then the movie quickly tries to stumble to an end in an anti-climatic mess, where ONE dragon ends up very easily and effortlessly killing the queen-bee. This 'boss-battle' was very reminiscent to the kraken at the end of Clash of the Titans, a lot of hype for a gigantic ugly villain that turns out to be an easily deafetable weak pussy. Then after the queen is dead (after a reign of 300 years, where no single dragon ever stood up to it) the vikings live in a weird dragon utopia, and the dragons become their dogs. This movie will now join most of the other Dreamworks almost good movies that I will quickly forget about... way to go. Maybe it needed a talking animal.
Oh... and the title is terrible.
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