Dr Lenera
Posts: 3448
Joined: 19/10/2005
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Dreamwork's CG toons tend to be a bit of a mixed bag, but How to Train Your Dragon is very impressive. The studio's animated movies usually seem to be better when they minimise the pop culure and 'adult' references, and so it is with this one. Set in a very impressively detailed Viking world, it's more of a fantasy action film than anything else, and while there are a few well placed laughs, for the most part it's fairly serious. Much of the time it alternates thrilling training sequences with scenes of the hero befriending a dragon [yes there are similarities to Dragonheart], than climaxes with a terrific half hour or so if spectacular action. The final dragon chase is possibly the most exciting CG toon action set piece done so far. The characters are mostly stock but an attempt has been made to give some of them a bit of depth, though of course it's the various dragons that are the star of the show, being superbly designed and executed, and almost convincing as live beings. The 3D, while rarely 'in your face', is pretty good. It seems that 3D is at it's most convincing in non live-action movies such as this, and the flying scenes here are quite stunning. I still maintain that the technique has not been perfected yet, and I'm not totally sure that it's worth bothering about, but at least here you don't get people standing right in front of you that seem seperate from the main action such as in Avatar and My Bloody Valentine. With an outstanding and quite rousing score by John Powell that sounds nothing at all like his Bourne work, this is a very good example of a film that should entertain adults and kids equally.
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