[Editor's Note: How To Train Your Dragon opens Fri., March 26 at area theaters. Click here for showtimes, and for more reviews of the latest new releases check out the Daily Loaf Movie Reviews Index.]
"My son made me come," a woman told me at the preview for How to Train Your Dragon. Some variation on this statement has been dragging poor, downtrodden parents to movie theaters for decades to see so-called "family films." But if such statements are normally uttered with dread and gloom, why was this woman smiling? The answer is that Dreamwork's new animated 3D film is actually fun. Based loosely on the popular children's book by Cressida Cowell, Dragon boasts a great cast, a clever story, eye-popping 3-D animation, pulse-pounding action and a musical score that had me searching the credits for John Williams' name. Dragon is one of those rare family films that will have grown ups borrowing nieces and nephews and strange kids off the street as justification to go see it. Rather than pigeonhole it as "family fare," I'm happy to say Dragon's just a really good movie.
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2010.