Ah Dreamworks, will you never learn? While rivals Pixar continue to leap ahead of the pack with sky high concepts and sublime characterisation, Dreamworks seems satisfied to churn out slapstick/Scottish accent mash-ups that – ahem – drag on…
To be fair, How to Train your Dragon is a visually arresting diversion with some lovely moments, but the mile high benchmarks set by the likes of Up! Will unfortunately always leave this trailing sadly behind and appearing…well, just too damn cartoonish to compete.
Based on Cressida Cowell’s children’s novel, we’re transported to the mythical land of Berk, a Noggin The Nog setting with manly Vikings refusing to up sticks despite the almost constant, fire-breathing attention of the titular scaly beasts, while Chief’s son Hiccup takes dragon-slaying lessons to win the respect of his father ( a superbly cast Gerard Butler). Typically, things soon go awry as Hiccup can’t quite bring himself to kill anything, instead nursing an injured dragon back to health as we stumble innocuously into one boy and his dog territory.
Unfortunately it’s not only innocuous –it also veers dangerously into boring territory. Even at under a hundred minutes the pace drags, shown in a harsh light against some truly breath-taking 3D flight and fight sequences.
Meanwhile the oddly Scottish Vikings run around shouting, fall over and look goofily at camera as the writers run out of things to say and fill the gaps with bucket-on-head clowning. The novel may be brisk, but surely there was enough material to fill out such a short running time? The result is an uneven adaptation that will leave younger children fidgeting at the lumpen ‘comedy’and adults glumly checking their watches.
It’s a shame that what could have been a genuinely entertaining concept is instead delivered as a missed opportunity, Dreamworks providing some superlative animation but missing the razor-honed wit of their rivals.
2 Comments
Maybe it’s unfair to compare?
mmm, it is a bit, to be honest this is still better than at least half the ‘adult’ movies (not like that!) filling multiplex screens today, but it’s just all over the bloody place – tighten those nuts Dreamworks!