'How to Train Your Dragon'

“How to Train Your Dragon” didn’t even make my radar when it came out. Then, one of my bffs called me and said, “Candy, you may as well just go buy this movie, because you’re going to love it.”

I’m leery of buying movies I’ve never seen before (a recent “Hellboy” misadventure comes to mind), but I did add it to my Netflix queu. She was right: I may as well have just bought it.

Maybe it’s because I love, and always have, stories dealing with magic and dragons and long-lost ages where people spent more time being brave than whining about their paycheck. This even adds in a little Viking culture.

Meet Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), the characteristic odd-teen-out, who just wants to kill a dragon and be like everyone else. Plus, he figures killing a dragon is the only way to impress his super macho father, Stoick (Gerard Butler), who just also happens to be leader of the Berk Vikings.

It might even get the old smith and dragon slayer Gobber (Craig Ferguson) off his back, just for a little while.

See, dragons and Vikings don’t get along. Dragons terrorize the village of Berk, which is pretty old but has all new houses. Vikings, as we know, are too hearty to let a little thing like constant terror and death at the hands of fire-breathing dragons scare them away from the craggy, harsh part of the world they call home. (Hiccup’s description of a barren landscape where it snows 9 months out of the year and hails the remaining three bears a strong resemblance to several states in the North Central region of this country.)

So, with a crazy invention of his own making, Hiccup manages to bring down the most fearsome of the dragons that terrorize his people: the Night Fury. But once he sees it, he can’t bring himself to follow the village’s “kill on sight” mantra. He releases the dragon, which in turn pays it forward by not killing Hiccup before disappearing.

But Hiccup and the dragon cross paths again, and form an unlikely friendship. Through Toothless, the aptly named dragon, Hiccup discovers that dragons don’t terrorize Berk just for the fun of it – there’s a darker, and much wartier, purpose at work.

Of course, Hiccup can’t tell his dad. Or Gobber. Or any of his peers in “dragon slaying school.” Then he faces his moment of truth, when he must choose to either kill a dragon in front of the villagers and earn their acceptance, or walk away and face something much scarier than even dragons: being told by people you care about that you don’t belong.

Though I’m still a traditional animation snob, this film looks fantastic. Toothless is cute, funny, and superbly expressive. He made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion.

Yes, it’s somewhat predictable. No, I don’t understand why the Vikings speak English with a variety of Scottish and Midwestern accents. In an animated film about fire-breathing dragons, however, it’s not especially hard for me to suspend my expectations of what is or is not realistic.

All I know is that this film reaffirmed my desire to have my own flying dragon to ride. So I don’t care what you say, Roger Ebert. I’m buying this movie.