How to Make a Kids’ Movie

dragon2
Sanders and DeBlois know badass.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
Written by Will Davies, Chris Sanders, and Dean DeBlois
98 min.

You know that moment in Ratatouille when a single bite of Remy’s “peasant dish” confit byaldi delivers an almost spiritually transformative experience to the soul-dead critic Anton Ego? That happened to me when I first watched How To Train Your Dragon. I’m a perpetually grumpy 24-year-old undergraduate STEM major, and it takes a pretty special movie to penetrate the cold stone that encapsulates my heart, so I was quite surprised when this one, quite effortlessly, did just that. So, you’ll have to forgive me if, over the course of this review, my arguments devolve into fanboyish ranting. I ain’t saying HTTYD is the best thing since The Lion King, but it is the best animated kids’ movie made in the U.S. since at least Wall-E, and is easily one of the best computer animated movies of all time.
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