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SPOILER-FREE SUMMARY:

One of the best family movies ever made and the second best 3D movie ever made (besides Avatar). Go. See. It. Now. I demand it.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!!!

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This is how you make a 3D movie, people! Holy cow, what a great movie--but first, the obligatory summary: How to Train Your Dragon is based on the best-selling book and tells the story of Hiccup, a young Viking who rejects the idea of killing dragons and befriends a dragon named Toothless.

Everything about this movie is great: the story tugs at all the right heartstrings and puts the thrills right where they need to be. The artwork is beautiful; even though the dragons are more "cartoony" than traditionally shown, they and the world they inhabit are wonderfully detailed. The voice acting is superb, too. I went into this one actually not knowing who was in the cast; I was able to peg Jay Baruchel as Hiccup but I was surprised when the end credits started rolling and I realized that the cast also included Gerard Butler, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Craig Ferguson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and David Tennant.

But mostly, we've got to talk about the 3D. Remember when I urged you not to see Clash of the Titans in 3D? Well, now I'm urging TO see this movie in 3D. This is REAL-D: the kind of 3D you don't mind paying $12 a ticket for, the kind of 3D you rush to the theater to see because you know the experience will never be the same again on home video. It's the same immersive 3D you saw in Avatar--where you were sucked into the movie's world and felt like you could climb into the screen and join in. The dragon-flying sequences are particularly exhilarating in 3D, and the ending is to die for.

And, no, it doesn't matter if you don't have kids. Don't give me that shit. This is a good movie, period. It doesn't matter if your 5-year-old nephew has been running around all month in How to Train Your Dragon underoos, you'll still enjoy this movie.

Final thought: Great, great, great, great movie. And apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so--it currently has a 98% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes (which is practically unheard of).