the Dot Info - FILM-THRUST!!: How to Train Your Dragon

Okay, our hero, Hiccup, and his dragon, Toothless, are fairly equal partners when all is said and done, but without Hiccup, Toothless is still at the bottom of that canyon...

I could have done without all the cutesy names (what self-respecting Vikings name their son Hiccup?), but by almost every other measure How to Train Your Dragon is a thrusting success.

The animation is awesome, on the whole. The people sometimes drift into that video-game sway that's supposed to convey a relaxed posture or something like it, but it never bothered me. I know I'm watching a cartoon, and there's nothing wrong with a cartoon looking like a cartoon.

Any deficiencies in the animation of the characters is more than offset by the flying scenes, which are some of the best looking shots in any movie in years, animated or otherwise. If there's a better movie to watch on LSD, I haven't seen it.

As a staunch opponent of the 3-D fad, I hate to say this, but Dragon would probably be more than worth the price of that extra dimension, if you're so inclined (I'm still not).

There were some parts of the story that I would have liked to see explored, but only if done in an R- or at least PG-13-rated way. Like, the dragons that are kept captive for the students to learn their dragon-killing skills on, they're surely tortured, right? Even Michael Vick would be aghast at the size of the mass grave behind the arena.

Not to mention the psychological torture the students go through themselves, being put by their parents into life-threatening situations on a daily basis... And being taught to brutally murder living (albeit dangerous) creatures in the process.

And why Hiccup's instructors and fellow students simply accept that he has a "way with the beasts" instead of executing him for witchcraft is beyond me.

The Vikings in How to Train Your Dragon do have to be commended for their surprising open-mindedness. Somehow, in the course of, what, days?, they are able to go from existing for the sole purpose of dragon-slaying to accepting them as equals. Er, I mean pets. Accepting them as pets.

If nothing else, they prove to be more enlightened than your average American.