How to train your dragon

Directed by Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders. Voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrara, Gerard Butler PG cert, gen release, 98 min

SIX YEARS after the nadir that was Shark Tale, DreamWorks Animation finally secures a place at the top table with this funny, exciting, sometimes rather moving fantasy- adventure.

What's that you say? Isn't this the studio that brought us the hugely successful Shrekfranchise? Well, yes. But those films always seemed somewhat unsure about the worth of their medium. Not willing to trust the audience's ability to take the story straight, the film-makers packed every scene with a clamour of contemporary pop-cultural references. As a result, the films felt more like stand-up routines than comic dramas.

By way of contrast, How to Train Your Dragoncombines a surging narrative (morally uplifting, but not finger-wagging) with an integrated matrix of verbal and visual zingers. Most pleasingly, it has faith in its own machinery and allows whole minutes to pass without the characters falling into chatter.

The film, based on a children's book by Cressida Cowell, plays a little like a less gloomy version of Beowulf.A Viking kid named Hiccup (well voiced by Jay Baruchel) lives on an inhospitable island where the main pastime appears to be fending off attacks from various species of dragon. Hiccup is, however, not very good at this slaying business. He lacks both co-ordination and the killer instinct.

Life changes when he encounters an injured lake-dwelling dragon who, after a period of cautious flirtation, he names – not entirely accurately – Toothless. Hiccup realises that the fire-breathing beasts are more frightened of the Vikings than the humans are of them. Conflict with his enormous father (Gerard Butler) looms.

The animation combines occasional zany caricatures with a pseudo-realistic approach to landscape that helps create a secure, confidently realised fantasy environment. The film has it moments of gee-whizz flash, but they are never allowed to impede the story’s powering momentum.

The only major caveat is, yet again, to do with the imposition of the largely unimpressive digital 3-D process. How to Train Your Dragonfeatures quite a few night scenes and, with the 3-D effects darkening the image, it's sometimes genuinely difficult to make out what's going on.

Kids may insist on seeing the spectacles-on version, but adult animation fans are well advised to seek out the flat incarnation. Nothing will be lost and something may even be gained (not least a few euro a ticket).