I did not have a very productive morning in terms of getting my grades done before noon like I normally do. I was a bit distracted by… a pressing matter that will come to a head tomorrow. So, at noon, I packed up my laptop and student essays, hid them, and made my way to see How to Train Your Dragon, which I’d wanted to see for a while. So worth the interruption to my day. If you haven’t seen it, get to your local theatre before it’s gone.

That being said, don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the film. Spoilers ahead.

“You’re not my son.”

Hiccup, the protagonist, is the skinniest of all the Viking in his village (except for Astrid, so you know they’re going to get together by the end) and the least physically able to participate in his tribe’s all-consuming pastime: dragon slaying (further evidence Hiccup will get together with Astrid by the end because, as Paula Abdul knows, opposites attract). Even though he has a million inventions to do the heavy lifting involved in dragon slaying, his father, the village chief, isn’t interested in progress. He’d rather rely on old-fashioned ways of dispatching the winged terrors. During a dragon raid, Hiccup traps a never seen, but rumored to be the worst dragon of all, a Night Fury. However, no one believes him when he announces his triumph. Hiccup sneaks away from the village and finds the Night Fury, whom he befriends over time and names Toothless. I’m going to have to admit that there were parts of this movie that made me tear up a bit. Maybe it’s the fact that I was really caffeinated at the time which always makes me emotional. Maybe it’s the fact that I have several pets, little souls in my care, whom I love more than I’ve loved most of my exes (not in an Erick Rivera kind of way, but in an appropriate human/animal kind of way). Maybe it’s because I have daddy issues out the wazoo (I can barely sit through The Lion King). Pick your trauma, but I found the plot of How to Train Your Dragon to be one with more depth and interest than most movies I’ve seen of late (including the last-in-a-line-of-godforsaken-French-films-that-unfathomably-win-awards opus, A Prophet).

“You just gestured to all of me!”

There’s something about a running gag that I love, and HtTYD is full of them, mostly directed at Hiccup. I want to call this “The Muppet Movie Syndrome”. Thankfully, the jokes never have the chance to grow predictable, and by the end, they’ve evolved into expressions of affection, again, directed at Hiccup. There’s also one transgressively bawdy joke at the expense of Hiccup’s dead mother. Stoick gives Hiccup his first gift: a horned helmet made from Mom’s breastplate. He explains, pointing to his own, that they’re a matched set; they keep her close. Hiccup tries to be appreciative, but, ya know, “Ew!”

The language is a little bit “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and a little bit “Glee”. Nothing wrong with that since that’s the demographic the movie points itself at (I was there! What more proof do you need?), and I didn’t even notice. At all. I hope this doesn’t mean I’m losing my linguistic edge.

“Well, most of him.”

I didn’t see the crippling at the end coming, though given all the other motifs, I should have. Still, I gasped when Hiccup got out of bed for the first time since being wounded fighting the Tyranodragon and his metal prosthetic touched the ground. It grounded the movie. Without it, the movie would have been good, but this irreversible maiming of a character made it, dare I say, profound.

“The food is tough and tasteless; the people even more so.”

I’m glad that How the Train Your Dragon was as fun as it was. Dreamworks is sometimes hit or miss with its animated features. Madagascar and Shrek had great early movies, but the shine dimmed quickly with all the sequels. Monsters vs. Aliens never got off the ground due to its glacial pacing and comic mistiming. However, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Kung-Fu Panda and Chicken Run were all well done full stop.

One thing I found odd was the darkness of the 3D. At the end of the movie when I took my glasses ff, I couldn’t believe how much color had been filtered through the dark lenses. It obviously didn’t interfere with my enjoying the movie, and I obviously wasn’t even aware of it, but now I’m going to peek over my glasses during every 3D movie I go to to see if I’m missing something.

“That’s for everything else.”

When all is said and done, dragons will probably make a comeback at Christmas this year. I know I left the theatre wanting a dragon, but I had to settle for zipping through Friday afternoon traffic at speeds in excess of 15 MPH over the posted limit (I know: “Do you dare?”). I shouldn’t say that. My friends already think I’m a hazard on the road. Still, would I be less of a hazard riding a dragon? Well, maybe for airplanes.

Hie now!