First and foremost, How to Train Your Dragon is a testament to the lunatic power of animation. Montreal's Baruchel is winning as the lovable loser in the current romantic comedy She's Out of My League. But he's much more realistic and fun here in a cartoon, playing a modern, roller-skating skinny teenager who happens to find himself stranded on a Scandinavian fjord in the 11th century. That's the film's best special effect, its best cosmic Hiccup.
And speaking of secret tricks, How to Train Your Dragon, which is loosely based on a kids' series by British author Cressida Cowell, offers future 3-D filmmakers a lesson on how the format works best. The film is living, fire-breathing proof that soaring spectacle works better than even the larkiest satire. Funny doesn't need 3-D. Groucho Marx's jokes jumped off black-and-white screens with the force of knockout punches.
What 3-D can do is loop-de-loops above the clouds. Make it feel like a bus-sized dragon runs harmlessly through you. The latest from DreamWorks is consistently inventive, easily incorporating the technology into the texture of the movie. But here's the best part: The movie's little tricks are just that - texture. The story here is interesting. The characters are fresh and funny. How to Train Your Dragon isn't a good 3-D movie. It's a good movie that happens to be in 3-D.