“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” – Abraham Lincoln

Usually when I watch animated films, I go into them with a bit of trepidation. I’m pretty careful about going to see movies that critics have rated highly, so at least I have my own safety there. Animated ones are a bit more difficult to predict though because I usually disagree with critics. “Wall-E” was highly praised, and I just thought it was OK.

With that in mind, “How to Train Your Dragon” came as a surprise to me. I highly recommend that everyone see this film. In a sea of mediocre CG movies that are just easy bait for children, this one stands out as a fresh breath of fire right in your face. It goes above and beyond those other films and does it with style.

“Dragon” is reaching the point of cartoons no longer being solely made for children. More than just not being annoying, it hits some themes that most animated movies aren’t savvy enough to even broach.

The story is about a teenage viking boy whose village is all about fighting off the dragons that come to attack and plunder. The boy is your typical skinny, annoying emo teenage boy who is completely worthless when it comes to fighting off the beasts. Worse than that, he usually causes as much damage to his village as the dragons do.

Once though, he gets lucky and brings down one of the notoriously dangerous species of dragon, as his first. But before he can claim his quarry, he has to go find where it landed.

He finds the dragon, weakened and at his mercy. But as much as he wants to be a dragon slayer like everyone else in the village, he can’t bring himself to kill such a majestic and now so-real-he-can-touch-it creature. Eventually, he becomes friends with the dragon, and it’s like a dog and all that. I’m not spoiling anything because this is all in the trailer.

I’m not going to go any further into the story because it’s always best experienced not knowing what to expect. The main theme of the story, i.e., that it’s better to befriend your enemies rather than smiting them, as good ol’ Abe Lincoln said, is something that everyone needs to hear, especially in the climate of life we have at the moment. It was a great take on this type of story, making the violence seem disheartening and saddening. It makes the villagers seem ignorant in their prejudices and their desire to conquer.

By the end of the film, I found myself rooting for the annoying kid. It’s a great feat to create a character that is unlikeable at the beginning of the film and make him into a real hero by the end.

The visuals are also very impressive. I assume that it’s much easier to make an animated film in 3D than a live action film. The 3D effect was used to great effect here (lame, I’m sorry). There were plenty of scenes that made you think “whoa, that’s cool.” There was stuff that was in your face in some scenes, motion effects in a few here and there, and some that just created a nice background. In comparison to the movie that started the recent trend, this one blows “Avatar” away. In its defense, “Avatar” had a couple things it did well, but was mostly for atmosphere. Here, it transcends gimmicky and approaches the feeling that you are actually there. I figure that’s the point of the effect. I can see how this effect will be abused in the future as a selling point for movies that do a poor job of implementing it, but it was pretty awesome here.

The last hump to get over in going to see this film is that it is an animated movie and there will likely be lots of annoying kids if you go see it in the theater, and you don’t want to feel childish yourself because you feel like you’re going to a movie for children. Some of the theme is mature enough that it will probably go over the kids’ heads. It’s edgy enough that it doesn’t feel like a children’s movie a lot of the time.

The jokes are pretty dry, which is something I enjoy. Some of the humor does reach more to kids, but it’s not annoying enough to make you do a palm-to-face. It’s nothing embarrassing.

The one downside to the film is that you get the typical cliches of most recent animated films: the love story, father-son squabbles, the whole “you can be something special” theme (side note: that one really seems to stand out in a lot of kids movies today. It’s not that it’s a bad message, it’s just that when everyone does it, it loses its effect. Less is more, here guys. Make something stand out by making it feel special, not by ramming it down kids’ throats. Don’t hurt the kiddies.). But for the most part, those cliches are not as pronounced as they are in other movies, and at least they all fit within the context of the main story and the main theme really well. I saw “Kung-Fu Panda” recently, and while I thought the first part of the movie was amusing, it really abused those ideas throughout the rest, and it left me feeling pretty bored overall. So, in contrast, that’s not a problem here.

So, grab your girlfriend or wife or some random child (if you’re a guy and you need to feel secure your own manhood) and take them to see this, and everyone else should have no reason not to go. It’s definitely worth everyone’s time to go see this and in 3D. If you need another reason, just remember that Abraham Lincoln recommended it. I mean, you can’t say that about too many films, so you know that means something.

Movie Grade: A-