'How to Train Your Dragon' has wall-to-wall action

Image by christianz1969 via Flickr

By Joan Vadeboncoeur
March 30, 2010, 6:06AM

“How to Train Your Dragon,” a coming-of-age story, has little new to offer about that time of life. But it has more wall-to-wall action than previous animated films.

Hiccup is the wimpy son of Berk’s Viking leader, Stoick. The town is old but the houses are new, due to the fact there are far better Viking fighters than Stoick’s tribe. Enemies destroy it regularly. So it is imperative that Hiccup become a warrior.

It is not in the boy’s nature. Inventing is, but when one of his gadgets nails a dragon, he cuts the creature loose. Payback comes during the child’s training when the dragon, Toothless, helps him defeat the fearsome creatures required to complete the course.

The filmmakers have inserted a girl, Astrid, who is not in the books by Cressida Cowell on which the movie is based. Although Astrid is competently voiced by America Ferrera, she registers as the routine feisty female of other films.

Jay Baruchel makes an appealing Hiccup, and the animation of his character is more expressive than most similar films. Gerard Butler is solid as his dad, delivering a father who loves his son even though the boy disappoints him as a fighter.

The 3-D swoops moviegoers through the battles with dazzling effects. Yet it does not ignore subtlety. Children won’t notice, but adults will appreciate the sparks that fly in their face from an off-screen campfire.