HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is a perfectly fine children’s entertainment. It does well with standard themes of divergence and acceptance, courage in the face of expectations as well as of danger, and the father/son dynamic. It’s exciting enough for older kids and not too scary for younger, and it kept my kids talking about it for the rest of the evening.
Here’s the setup: young Hiccup lives in a Viking village constantly beset by dragons. Unfortunately, he’s the smart and skinny kid in a brawn-centered culture. He’s never going to wield a 75-lb mace in battle against a flying menace, so how will he find his place as a true Viking? Ok, the title gives it away, but still. The film tells its story briskly, hits its beats right on schedule, keeps things moving along. I watched it while juggling three kids, two sodas, one of those enormous tubs of popcorn, a box of stale nachos and inedible cheese sauce, and a packet of Raisinets. That’s multiple trips to the bathroom, more than one shushing, and two detours to the lobby so my preschooler could practice his “frog jumping” as the mood struck (Hey, that’s why we sit in the back.). It was still fine. When a story speaks to familiar themes and rigidly adheres to standard structure, you don’t need to see every scene to stay with it.
So enjoy the artwork and dig HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON for what it is. There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half.
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