Got out to Ye Old Manatee today to see How To Train Your Dragon with the boy and girl.

I wasn’t terribly excited about it to be honest. For whatever reason: Dreamworks sometimes spotty history, my hard-on for all-things dragony that didn’t want to see this done poorly, a general trend of my being frustrated with movie-going? Some heady mix of all of the above, no doubt.

Between some good word of mouth, and taking any excuse to get out with the kids for the afternoon I figured it was worth a shot.

Holy sweet dragon shit am I glad I did.

This movie is incredible. Thumbs up across the board. The boy (5) loved it, the girl (2) loved it, and I probably loved it most of all (34).

My first thought coming out was that Dreamworks might finally steal the gold bald guy out from under Pixar this year. With Toy Story 3 looking to retread Lasseter’s too-well trod Brave Little Toaster* path, it could be a good year to squeak out a long-awaited, little victory.

I mean, the story isn’t going to blow your fragile mind or anything. It’s no Up or Wall-E. It’s standard Dreamworks fare, if exceptionally well done standard Dreamworks fare. Dragon comes in better than Kung-Fu Panda by a long yard, and I rather loved Panda. It’s expertly animated, solidly acted, has great beats, genuine chuckles, and some totally rad action.

Totally. Rad. Action.

The girl was antsy and ran around the aisles for large swathes of the film. We had the place to ourselves, so I indulged her. But as it crested the last act and the dragon shit starts hitting the viking fan, her ass was glued right back in her seat. Mouth agape, drinking in every awesome inch of dragon-saturated cellulose.

Note: We didn’t see it in 3-D, because seriously, fuck 3-D. But if you’re into that, and have the extra bucks it’s probably worth the price of admission.

Good movies are difficult to review. They’re good and you should go see them and what else is there to say? Bad movies you come out of with a sense of righteous outrage that the reviews practically write themselves. Here? Um, it’s totally wicked? It’s full of  sweet-ass dragons doing sweet-ass crap. I mean, why are you sitting there reading this when you could be out there watching it? You know?

I’ll give a quick shout-out to Jay Baruchel, who carries this movie on voice alone for long stretches.

Playing opposite a non-verbal contributor asks a lot of a guy’s voice. He brings a likability to the main character, Hiccup. He’s never too pathetic or whiny, he plays the line very well. He’s always good at making you want to root for him, but to be able to do it without the use of his hang dog features and “aw-shucks” hair-tussel, is worth mentioning.

After The Baruch of God, Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson are the stand-outs (yea, though no one failed to bring the proper heat to their roles). An applaudable stable of voice actors all around, creating a memorable cast. A lot of decent vocal subtlety that can be tough to get out of the All-Star grab bags so popular in voicework these days.

Lastly, let’s just say a quick word about the dragons. I wasn’t impressed with the design and models going into the movie, and to be fair, I’m still not knocked out by them coming out. They’re all just a little too goofy. While in motion (and pushed forward by a development I totally should’ve seen coming but didn’t) they work well enough with the world around them. They didn’t stand out as bad as I feared going in.

The main drag, Toothless, however, is the obvious exception and stand-out. At turns terrifying, goofy, sweet, etc. Everything you need from your voiceless, animal stand-in character. He has no less than two of the best moments in the show, and considering he is a total figment of the movie’s imagination, that’s something.

The Verdict: I can’t wait to see it again, and I will buy this movie the minute it becomes available.

As usual, I asked the boy what his favorite part of the movie was, and he said soberly: “When that boy trained the Dragon.”

I’ll take that to mean all the parts. You should too.

*An excellent path, no doubt, I’m just a little leary of needing to go back to this well again.