How to Train Your Dragon

[clearblacklines]

First up: As with all film reviews, your tastes may match my own, or they may not. Feel free to agree/disagree/watch the movie yourself and be thoroughly disappointed by high expectations set by my review below. *g

Comments

[dinglehoppers]

This post makes me realise how much I've missed your writing. Excellent review. :)

I had such a great time watching it with you! You're a fun movie buddy. More I say! And I noticed you tend to burst out laughing at parts where few people would. Which just shows how good a movie-viewer you are. For starters, someone who strictly doesn't take things at face value.

By the way I see what you did there!! Let's hope your boss didn't! XD

[clearblacklines]

LOL, hi! I'm loud, I know, I'm sorry, I just get so excitable sometimes. XD It was a good movie!

YOUR ICON! Is that the TLM artwork you were talking about?

[dinglehoppers]

And I'm glad! It's contagious and it brings out the best in everyone else. :)

Yes!! I've just e-mailed you the thingamajigs. :D

[revyrie]

Wow, I'm so happy that the cheesy Olympics marketing trailers are NOT the sum of this movie. I'm behind on watching animated movies (haven't seen PatF or Wall-E yet) but I agree with your assessment of the studios' philosophies and I'm SO glad they are focusing on a good story!

[clearblacklines]

Trailers don't do much for convincing me to watch a movie nowadays... I'll know that the movie exists, but I'm rarely intrigued enough to check it out unless I do some research (reviews, and whatnot). I think I saw one trailer for How to Train Your Dragon, and I wasn't impressed either, so I was absolutely delighted by the final product. Do watch it, if you can... I really do believe that those who are into straightforward old-school storytelling will enjoy this film. :)

[dearpapillon]

Yes I agree, I would have never watched it if not for the fact my brothers dragged me into it. I thought it was a dumb ass forgettable typical Dreamworks movie (judging by Shrek, Over the Hedge etc) that I wasn't expecting much, and I was so blown away by HTTYD!

I wish Dreamworks and Pixar would go back to their roots of wonderful story telling, minus the cheap gags and rude animals, i think there might be some hope for the future of animation.

[clearblacklines]

I'd already made peace with the fact that maybe the films being made these days were for the next generation -- my generation had our time, and tastes change, so whatever. But then a film like How to Train Your Dragon comes out and I realize that there is such a thing as telling a story to appeal to ALL generations. \o/

[evenstar]

Yes! I wish I were as eloquent as you, but you've summed up everything that made this film shine.

And ... [tackles her in a big hug] The Prince of Egypt is such a brilliant film. Yes. It's sometimes difficult to imagine it being a DreamWorks property. It seems oddly forgotten about these days, too ...

[clearblacklines]

I am seriously in love with this film and I've been pimping it out to people, only for them to be skeptical when I tell them that's awesome. D: But I did manage to get a few people to watch and all of them thank me for it, YESSSS. It seems to me that Dreamworks is focusing so much on their upcoming Shrek Forever After that their marketing team is slacking off for this GENUINELY GOOD film.

It totally blows my mind that The Prince of Egypt is considered a forgotten film. I remember that it was SUCH an event when it first premiered -- there was a lot of promotion, the single When You Believe was huge on the charts, and it didn't do too shabbily in the box-office, I thought. I really don't know how it became a forgotten film. :(

Tangent! I found out that Brenda Chapman, one of the directors for the Prince of Egypt will be directing a project by Pixar, which makes me SO excited.

[rottworks]

I had a similar experience. I was only slightly interesting in seeing the film and definitely not in theaters (or in 3D!), but unexpectedly I ended up seeing it with a friend when we had some extra time.

It started out slow but really picked up when Toothless arrived and all of a sudden we were really enjoying the movie. I'm not sure how much the other viewers liked it (there were only about four others and unlike us they stayed pretty quite throughout the film), but we left completely enthusiastic about the experience. This doesn't happen often to me with the new animated movies nowadays so it was a pleasant surprise.

Anyway, I'm glad you are writing movie reviews/reactions again, or at least came back to do so for this movie. :)

[clearblacklines]

How to Train Your Dragon definitely benefits from there being no expectations (or, maybe, the wrong expectations) attached to it. And you're right, Toothless definitely stole the show -- and isn't it amazing that he managed to do without a single line of dialogue? Dreamworks can learn something! :D