First, GREAT MOVIE. It's like AVATAR for kids. Absolutely worth seeing.
Story: there's a Viking village that has to deal with attacks from dragons that steal their livestock. The vikings train to become mighty dragon slayers. Hiccup, the son of the Chief, wants to be a great dragon killer like his father, but he's a bit of a screw-up and his father is afraid he will get killed so he blackballs his son from dragon slaying training. Still, during raids Hiccup keeps trying and his father realizes he won't be able to stop him, so he lets Hiccup enter the dragon slaying program. At the same time Hiccup comes across a rare dragon -- a Night Fury -- that he kind of caught during the last raid. He has a chance to kill this rare dragon and become a hero, but seeing the dragon close up he has a change of heart. The two become friends and as they bond Hiccup learns all sorts of things about dragons, like how to sooth them and what they are afraid of and Hiccup realizes he doesn't just not want to kill this dragon, but he doesn't want to kill any dragons. This let's Hiccup excel at dragon slaying training since he can best dragons without actually killing them. His dragon also eventually shows him the dragon's nest which is where their queen dragon lives. Eventually things come to a head: in training Hiccup is forced to kill a dragon an when he refuses the dragon will almost kill him. He will be saved by his Night Fury, but his dragon will be captured by his father who will use the dragon to go back to the nest to kill the queen of all dragons so the vikings can be rid of dragons forever.
See? Almost exactly like AVATAR with dragons. (The movie is based on a book that came out in 2003 btw).
Now this movie does have comedy in it, but not as much as a lot of other animated films. It definitely has some kicking action scenes and all the flying and fighting are great. It migh be a little intense/scary for little kids...or they might absolutely love it.
DEFINITELY RECOMMEND FOR KIDS ** I saw the 2D version, but with all the flying and action scenes I'd recommend the 3D version if you can.
FOR ADULTS -- (** SPOILERS **)
Well, it doesn't quite hold up to Avatar which is a shame. To be honest, I actually probably enjoyed this movie more than Avatar until the third act, which is where this movie falls apart thematically while Avatar holds together strongly until the end. Avatar makes everything very clear -- there are greedy corporations that want the minieral and want to get rid of the natives, however it needs to be done. Then there are the scientists who want to find a peaceful solution so the humans and Navi can be on the world together, who think the Navi world is beautiful and worth saving. The third act is the greedy humans detroying the sacred tree, but the wildlife of the world attack the greedy human forces and drive them off the world, letting the scientists remain. Go nature! Go environment! Unfortunately, it is in this third act that How To Train Your Dragon comes apart (at least thematically) and why it's really Avatar for kids. The third act of HTTYD has Hiccup's Night Fury captured and forced to lead the vikings to the dragon nest. Fine. Once there, the queen dragon attacks the vikings, overwhelming them and it is Hiccup and some friends who come save them. Also okay. Except the queen dragon keeps attacking and now Hiccup and his Night Fury have to find a way to kill the queen dragon.... What? They kill the queen? Isn't that bad? I mean, they do show the queen as punishing (i.e. eating) dragons that don't bring enough food, but don't insects or bees or whatever usually LIKE the queen? It's not like the dragons seem to want to be rid of the queen. The queen just sits in her cave. They could always just not come back if they really didn't like her. But, no. So it's kind of a weird message. I mean, first it's weird that you have dragons who are apparently more like ants or bees then reptiles, but okay, but then you have a movie where the main character doesn't want to kill dragons -- any dragons -- so the big final sequence is where he kills the queen?
I don't know. For me the whole third act felt pretty off. Which is a shame, because to be honest before that I actually liked this movie more than Avatar. In fact, the other biggest complaint I had about the movie was that it was too short. I wanted more time to explore the viking world and the dragon world. The movie is close to 90 minutes, but they easily could have made it close to 110 without losing any tension and making the characters and world deeper and more powerful. My only other complain is that some of the drgons (including the main one) look a little more like fuzzless stuffed animals than like dragons. I know they wanted to make them "cute" but they still could have been more dragon-like and have still worked. (I also wasn't a big fan of Jay Baruchel as Hiccup because his voice is a little too distinctive to me and it was distracting. If you don't know who he is it probably wouldn't be a problem.)
As an adult, while I loved a lot of this movie, I also found it frustrating not because it wasn't good, but because it came so close to being really, really great. And I was really, really rooting for it to be great, but that third act just didn't do it for me. It's fine for kids and for adults just looking for a fun actiony movie, but I just wish the filmmakers had realized they had a chance to make something more. Because they really, really did.
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