How to Train Your Dragon:

A Viking boy called Hiccup (voice: Jay Baruchel) introduces his village of Berk ("it's been here for seven generations, but every single building is new"). The village is attacked by dragons, who steal food (mostly sheep) and set things on fire (hence all the new buildings). The villagers grab weapons and try to fight the dragons off. Despite being told by every adult in sight to go indoors, Hiccup hauls out a bolas-shooting cannon he made himself and shoots a dragon out of the night sky. (As assistant to the village blacksmith, Gobber (voice: Craig Ferguson), Hiccup has access to tools and materials and knows how to use them.) The dragon lands in the woods some distance form the village and no one believes that he hit anything, so it's the next day before Hiccup can go looking for it. It turns out to be a rare and deadly Night Fury, but Hiccup can't make himself kill it. Instead he releases it -- whereupon it also refrains from killing Hiccup -- and it flies off through the trees.

Hiccup discovers that the dragon (which he eventually calls Toothless because of its retractable teeth) has holed up in a steep-sided valley because it can no longer fly more than a few feet at a time. While sketching the dragon, Hiccup realizes that it's missing a tail fin. He makes a prosthetic tail fin out of leather. The new fin helps, but Toothless can't control it and inadvertently takes Hiccup for a ride, giving him a clear idea of what's needed to help the dragon fly right. In a series of workshop and test flight scenes, Hiccup builds and perfects a saddle, a control mechanism for the tail fin, and a safety harness.

M & M_Club Rating : 4.0/5