We interrupt our Women’s Month Feature to bring...

We interrupt our Women’s Month Feature to bring you our review of a movie that’s currently soaring in theaters.

Flying with the Enemy
by Aldrin Calimlim

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
D: Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
S: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson

Ever since DreamWorks Animation entered the CGI filmmaking arena, a great deal has been said about its apparent reputation of merely playing second fiddle to Pixar, that renowned animation studio that on account of its having created nothing but widely acclaimed films has become a modern benchmark for excellent filmmaking, animated or otherwise. It’s a consensus that is far from baseless. Whereas Pixar had Finding Nemo, DreamWorks had Shark Tale. And while Ratatouille cooked up a delicious dish for moviegoers, Bee Movie stung them with its blandness. In DreamWorks’s defense, though, it did produce Shrek (the box office giant that was awarded the first ever Best Animated Feature Oscar) and the surprisingly agreeable Kung Fu Panda.

Now there’s a word I have come to use time and again in the same sentence with a DreamWorks title that refers to one of the studio’s better films: surprisingly. Unlike Pixar, DreamWorks isn’t exactly known for its consistency in turning out films of good quality, so I can hardly be blamed for presupposing that a new DreamWorks movie is bad until proven good. But, to be sure, it was my walking into a theater playing a DreamWorks animated film with some degree of trepidation, then walking out of it with about the same degree of satisfaction, that made me conclude that Flushed Away was surprisingly witty, Monsters vs Aliens was surprisingly hilarious, and just recently, How to Train Your Dragon was surprisingly amazing.

How to Train Your Dragon, based on the children’s book by Cressida Cowell, is set in the mythical Isle of Berk, where big, burly Vikings fight deadly, food-stealing dragons on a regular basis. As is common with stories like this, an improbable hero is introduced. In this one, he goes by the name of Hiccup, and he’s small and scraggy. In short, he’s very unVikingly. However, he is exceedingly smart, and he’s determined to prove his worth—to his father, in particular, who happens to be chief of the tribe—by killing the Night Fury, the most dangerous and elusive of all the dragons that beset the island. And wouldn’t you know it? Hiccup succeeds in capturing the beast… but fails in slaying it. Instead, as is common with stories involving a boy and a dragon, an unlikely friendship is formed. Hiccup then realizes that his new friend Toothless and its fellow scaled monsters are highly misunderstood creatures, that there’s a bigger reason behind their adverse behavior than their simply being dragons. So, Hiccup sets out to challenge his people’s way of life and persuades them—his father, in particular, who as chief of the tribe has spent most of his life fighting dragons—to put an end to the mutual hostility that exists between them and their reptilian enemies.

Now you might be wondering, “What’s so ‘surprisingly amazing’ about that?” I understand that DreamWorks is not really one to boast of originality in the story department. We’ve been down the “young human and unlikely, unfriendly-at-first, non-human friend” storyline one too many times (see The Water Horse, Iron Giant, or Lilo & Stitch, which was co-directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois’s previous film). We’ve also seen that, more often than not, a boy and his dragon do not a good movie make (Dragonheart or Eragon, anyone?). How to Train Your Dragon, though, transcends the limits of its oft-repeated story by adding plenty of depth to its familiar themes of friendship, family, liberation, and the importance of believing in oneself and in others. The script is surprisingly (There’s that word again.) superb, fortunately deprived of pop culture references and abounding instead with breathtaking action and emotional profundity, both of which are magnified by superlative 3D animation, voice work, and musical underscoring.

In this film, rather than coming off as a mere gimmick to rake in more box office returns, 3D technology is used to full advantage, thereby rendering the alternative title How to Train Your Dragon 3D appropriate. One need only watch, with stereoscopic glasses on, the sequence of Hiccup’s first time riding on the back of Toothless, soaring above seas, mountains, and clouds, to know what I mean. It is a scene that brings to mind Harry Potter’s first flight with Buckbeak in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and that of Jake Scully with his chosen banshee in Avatar, while demonstrating how it is cuts above these two similar scenes and the rest. It is a scene that perfectly embodies the visual scheme of the film, comprising exemplary production design and art direction.

But I’m not saying that the only way to enjoy this film is by letting go of half of your allowance for the weekend at the ticket counter. Not at all. I suspect that even in a conventional theater, the animation will nevertheless look gorgeous and you, the audience, will still be in for a treat. You certainly won’t be needing special 3D eyewear to listen to some excellent dialogue and voice work courtesy of Jay Baruchel (who is pitch-perfect as Hiccup) and Gerard Butler (who gets to return to playing his 300 character, sans ridiculous set of abs and overdone yelling), alongside other voice actors, and you also won’t be needing those silly-looking glasses to be moved by John Powell’s inspired score, will you?

How to Train Your Dragon was, is, surprisingly amazing. How it makes a simple story of man and animal soar through imaginative direction is amazing. The demonstration of the talents involved, both seen and heard, is amazing. With it, the guys behind DreamWorks may not have outdone Pixar yet, but they have definitely outdone themselves. And that’s a start. Here’s to hoping I’ll end up using surprisingly followed by a positive adjective in the same sentence with a DreamWorks title with such regularity as to ultimately rid me of the need to use it.