Pun Salad

As I type, it's #181 on IMDB's Top 250 Movies of all time. That's a little strong for me, but to be fair, I merely watched the 2-D version at home; the 3-D theatrical version might have been really awesome.

It's pretty good, though. The story revolves around a Viking village sorely beset by a variety of dragons that steal sheep and kill the occasional villager; not onscreen, though. An oddball lad, Hiccup, has few physical skills for dragonfighting, but is blessed with an ingenious and creative soul, and attempts to demonstrate this by constructing a weapon to bring down the deadliest of all dragons: a Night Fury.

He winds up merely wounding it. And when he tracks it down, he can't bring himself to finish off the beast. Instead, he … well, see the title. This sets up an obvious conflict with the exterminatory feelings of the folks back in the village. But it's aimed mostly at the kiddos, so you can pretty much guess how it comes out.

Plot, voice talent, animation quality are all great. Dreamworks continues to do a very good job of being not-quite-Pixar. As a mild conservative, I should point out Jonah Goldberg's column on the movie too.