The Movie: How To Train Your Dragon

Director : Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders

Writer : Cressida Cowell, William Davies

Cast : Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson

Preview

Now, just why a Viking leader named Stoick the Vast ever agreed to name his son Hiccup remains a mystery. But even without the name, our hero (voiced by Jay Baruchel) was never going to be your typical teen. He's slight of build in a clan of hearty folk; an out-of-the-box thinker before boxes were invented; and he stumbles into the fine art of dragon whispering in a village where everyone shouts and no one has heard of Cesar Millan.

"Train Your Dragon" is also a study in how nuance can actually complement the spectacle we've come to demand of 3-D animation. It's a surprisingly nice fit in an opposites attract sort of way with much of the credit going to the directing team of Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, who shaped "Lilo & Stitch" and "Mulan" so nicely.

The film does this particularly well with its distinctive visual style that allows for lots of space and shadows. But it is an especially nice touch in the dragon tale itself, which is both heartwarming and heartfelt, a significant departure from the pop culture saturated sarcasm that had become something of a DreamWorks Animation staple à la "Shrek."

The story got its footing in Cressida Cowell's popular children's fantasy novel that gives the film its name. But instead of a world of mostly peaceful coexistence between man and beast that Cowell imagined, "Dragon" takes off in a slightly earlier time when the Viking clan of the Island of Berk is still locked in a battle to the death with the flying terrors.

The dragons, not surprisingly, are the main visual attraction and come in various shapes and sizes with clever names like the two-headed Hideous Zippleback, or the Monstrous Nightmare (which I heard turned up recently at Fannie Mae, but that could be just a rumor). The most fearsome and illusive of all is the Night Fury -- basically, a fire-breathing stealth bomber in black scales.

See the trailer here !!