Well they did it again! Dreamworks, thank you so much.  How to Train Your Dragon captured my heart, my twins' hearts, and our friend Cameron who came along with us to see it. I'm very grateful for the second adult to help tag team the comfort-zone as the movie is as intense as the posters imply. But with such love and care.  I had prepped the twins beforehand, this was about a village who thought that the right thing to do was to kill dragons. But it took one curious boy to discover that dragons could be pets, and he helped teach his village that same thing.

Mind you we didn't see it in 3D. No, these kids are far from seeing a movie in 3D - not since Jack saw Shrek 4D at Universal Studios, had a spider "jump" out at us, which left us summarily exiting the theatre before anything else could happen. So we saw it in standard, not 3D.  There were clear moments when I wished that I could be seeing this in IMAX, and I am considering going again by myself to feed that wish. But oh, really, standard or 3D, How to Train Your Dragon was a treasure.  It is a treasure!

With a message of compassion, keeping an open mind, and being patient and loving to all creatures great and small, how could I say anything bad about this movie? Ella had a very hard time when the hero dragon "Toothless" was being attacked by the vikings, but she recovered. We rooted for the vikings as they changed their mind about dragons and saved the day together.

There is another message in How to Train Your Dragon, probably missed by most but it stood out to me. There is a wonderful message about prosthetics in this film, about how they are these wonderful tools to help creatures of all walks of life have fully uninhibited lives. It was absolutely the first time my kids had been introduced to that idea at all, and it was always in such a loving, accepting and interesting way. I'm very grateful for that inclusion in How to Train Your Dragon.

The hero, Hiccup, is the son of the chief of the vikings, and has been a disappointment to his father while he fails at being a "true viking" and dragon killer. It was extremely hard for my kids to understand a father saying, "you aren't my son" to his son.  This was way above their heads and close to causing them some heartbreak. But they recovered quickly as the redeeming moment of pride came shortly thereafter.

My advice to you, take your kids! My 5 year olds loved it, and my little ones are far more sensitive than their peers. However, make sure you are a 1:1 adult:kid ratio so that there is always someone to talk the kids through the parts that may go above their heads, or scare them into your lap.

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