*How to Train Your Dragon ........ Critical Review by Jamil Shawwa

The story of this movie begins with a new generation of Vikings prepare to take over the profession of their forbearers, hunting, torturing, and chasing dragons all over the universe. The star of the movie, a boy by the name of Hiccup was not into this business, and therefore was ignored in the first quarter of the movie. He felt that he was different; he had questions about this profession. The story continues with Hiccup as he stumbles with a notorious dragon that could not fly, so he attends to it and created an artificial wing for this dragon. Hiccup called this fearless creature, Toothless. He thought in the beginning that the dragon did not have teeth. The dragon felt the love, and Hiccup kept this relationship hidden from the other Vikings who ridiculed him for not being a real Viking. The story evolved to the point that the secret was uncovered and the decisive moment came when Hiccup threw his weapons and in a show refused to kill any of the caged dragons. His father disavowed him. Hiccup questioned the methods and this way of life and decided that enough bloodshed and enough killings. In a conversation with his father, Hiccup said that the time has come to make peace with the dragons and the father answered but how can we do that and they killed thousands of us, Hiccup answered that we did the same. Hiccup managed at some point to help the Vikings change their way when the dragons nest was uncovered and every one found out that the dragons themselves were hostages to a zealous dragon who kept them jailed in the mountain. While the Vikings were chasing the dragons in that mountain, they released them but angered the zealous dragon. The story keeps going on to show a new alliance between the Vikings and the dragons in the fight against that monster dragon. The story is well done and the visual effects were marvelous, though I opted to watch the cheaper version, no 3D, but still was fantastic. The bottom line is this, everything is possible, and the enemies of yesterday can be allied today. It takes sometimes one courageous person to change the world and the mindset, that person in that story was a weak underachiever, ignored boy by the name of Hiccup.

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* check link to movie trailer at the end of this page.