365 Days. 365 Films.

Jay Baruchel stars as Hiccup, the son of a Viking dragon slayer who hasn’t inherited any of his father’s talents, but desperately wants to be a Viking. One day he stumbles across a dragon that has been tied down and once he frees it, he realises that not all dragons are dangerous. Befriending the dragon he names Toothless, he realises he has trouble flying because of a missing fin on his tail, Hiccup invents a device to help Toothless fly again and fixes a saddle to him. Meanwhile, Hiccup’s father and all the entire village in which they live are rooting for him to become a dragon slayer, but after his friendship with Toothless blooms, he realises that he no longer wants to slay them, but train them.
Baruchel is brilliant as the voice of Hiccup, both funny and moving, but a lot of the credit for this should go to the animation which, as usual, is great. Dreamworks have done a great job with this film, and although it may not be to a standard that we are used to since Pixar created an incredible life-likeness with some of their animations, it still sparks emotion and brings the characters to life, along with the voice actors, of course.
It is an enjoyable film with a slightly darker twist than one may expect from a kid’s movie but not quite as polished as I was hoping for considering the praise it received at the box office. The story is simple and quite involving, but often too predictable.