How to Train Your Dragon (3D)

Having dabbled with digital graphics previously, I always love animation films. Last Tuesday, thanks to the nice folks at UIP, I caught the preview for DreamWorks Animation‘s latest film, How to Train Your Dragon, in 3D, together with my pal, Leon.

Both of us were very impressed with the characterisation and the modeling of the many dragons in the film. Unlike the dragons seen in most other movies, the dragons here closely resembles real-life animals like cats and dogs.

Here are some of the dragons featured in the film:

This made the intricate relationship between the lead character, Hiccup and his pet dragon, Night Fury, very believable. Night Fury will purr like a cat for attention at time, while hopping mad like a Chihuahua on steroid when it’s excited.

What I also like about this movie is the limited use of slapstick antics for humour, relying more on witty lines and emotional scenes to arrest attention. One would think this would detach the younger audience who may not be able to catch subtlety. Alas, judging from the loud, merry laughter of the kids in the cinema hall I watched the movie with, one have to conclude that children are much more sophisticated than we give them credits for these days.

Vikings and dragons aside, what makes this film works is a well-paced, wholesome storyline suitable for all audience. How to Train Your Dragon is now showing in Singapore cinemas. Do go catch it. 🙂

Movie Trailer:

[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/v/qHUhygdAZIw&hl=en_US&fs=1&”]

Synopsis (via Wikipedia):

The film is set in a mythical world of Vikings and dragons. The story centers on a viking teenager named Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), who lives on the island of Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life. The teen’s smarts and offbeat sense of humor is disliked by his tribe and its chief, Hiccup’s father, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler). However, when Hiccup is included in Dragon Training with the other viking teens, he sees his chance to prove he has what it takes to be a fighter. After he entangles a dragon with a bolas-shooting cannon, Hiccup releases and ends up befriending the dragon, who he dubs Toothless. This relationship flips his world upside down as he strives to convince his tribe that they don’t need to be dragon-slayers but he ends up making the tribe angry and they lead an attack on the dragons home.

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