I was a little disappointed by this cartoon at first, because many of the characters, although in theory “vikings,” are in fact dressed up obnoxious American teenagers. I managed to get over this though, as once the hero of the story gets going, the other kids come round to his point of view, of course…

And ‘hero’ is the right word. The plot is, as usual for Hollywood-style adventure movies, the hero’s journey, in which our hero is rejected and misunderstood by all, and has to redeem himself by being himself, and doing what he believes to be right. In this case our hero is a viking boy, but a weedy intellectual one. And he is in a world where his village is being attacked by dragons and the thing to be is a tough guy who can kill the dragons. Still, although nobody understands him, they are more-or-less tolerant of him, which is just as well, of course, as in the long run his brains are going to save the day when the monster granddaddy of all dragons emerges later in the film…

This movie isn’t called ‘How to Tame Your Dragon’ for nothing, of course, and one of our hero’s gadgets manages to down a Night Fury – a particularly fearsome type of dragon. However, nobody believes him and he goes off into the woods in search of the downed dragon by himself.

I’m giving nothing away by telling you that, of course, he finds the dragon, and it is not dead, just injured and tangled up in the remains of our hero’s gadget. Instead of killing his nemesis, he frees it, and, by trusting his instincts and with the help of some fish, makes a new friend. The dragon itself is clearly modelled on a cat. This is a good basis for a dragon, I think: the cat-like nature of it gives it a great deal of charm and not a little dangerousness.

In psychological terms, the dragon presumably represents the hero’s specialness – his uniqueness. When leaving home for the first time, as he did here, he is challenged (by meeting the dragon) and has to deal with it somehow (which he does by making friends with his special powers as symbolised by the dragon: he accepts who he is, and can therefore use his accepted abilities and uniqueness as needed, without shame, in future).

He returns to the village and has to join dragon-fighting school, but it turns out to everyone’s surprise that he is a champion at dealing with dragons (having secretly tamed one) and he soon becomes recognized by all, except his father who is away on a dragon-hunting expedition. Psychologically, having accepted his personal power by taming the dragon, he has access to resources people without those abilities can’t understand, but they can see the results clearly enough: he is growing up.

Well, I’m not going to tell you the whole story here! Suffice it to say that although his father tries to continue things in the old ways, still not getting the idea that his son has grown up, the mega-dragon is too much for them and only our hero can save the day… for which the reward is a better village, lots of nice dragon pets, and the local hot babe.

So… is it any good? Well, at first as I say, I was a little disappointed, but I came round in the end and particularly enjoyed the big battle at the end of the film between our hero, his friends and their tamed dragons, and the monster granddaddy of all dragons. There was one particularly memorable shot of the viking warriors on the ground watching this gigantic dragon climbing into the deep sky, far away, as the battle raged far above them. Certainly, it was a formula film; Hollywood seems capable of little else these days. But it was well done and enjoyable in the end. I would give it 7/10 overall. The cartoon quality was in the plasticky style of Shrek: it remains watchable but lacks some organic warmth, I feel. Many of the backgrounds were very nicely done, although the style varied from time-to-time throughout the film.