What a lovely and heartwarming tale My Father’s Dragon turned out to be. Based on a book from 1948 by Ruth Stiles Gannett. My Father’s Dragon is one of the loveliest animated movies to have the Netflix Original tag. Even though I had never heard of the book, I loved this movie and was captivated from start to end.
How to Download My Father’s Dragon
You can download or stream the film from Netflix. Click on the Download button at the end of this review. Check out also other Netflix animated originals such as Klaus, The Sea Beast, or The Magician’s Elephant.
The Movie Review
While this movie does have the Netflix Original tag, it was actually produced by Cartoon Saloon along with Netflix and it has their classic adventure with heart style. I am kind of mad at myself as my theatre actually had this playing for a short time and I blew it off, deciding to wait for it to hit Netflix, I really wish I made the effort to see this on the big screen.
My Father’s Dragon is best described as a children’s story coming to life. Actually, the movie is presented with a mother reading her child a story. The story she is telling her child is about her dad when he was a child and an adventure he had with a dragon. I love this way of storytelling as it does make you feel like a child having a story read to you by a parent or grandparent.
The story is about a young boy called Elmer who lives with his mother and they run a candy store together. They have a good life, but things take a sour turn and they end up having to close the shop and move to a new town. They have tried to save up money to open a new store, but they end up losing their money.
Elmer tries his best to make some money and a cat that can talk tells Elmer that there is a special island with a dragon on it and this could be a way for him to make the money he and his mother needs. He embarks on a wild adventure to go and find this dragon.
The dragon is called Boris and he is freaking adorable. He and Elmer strike up a good friendship and Elmer says he will help Boris. You see, this island is sinking and Boris needs to try and save it, however, Boris is not all that brave, and as adorable as he is, he is a bit of a screw up.
There is more to the story than just that, but I do not want to go into spoiler territory. At its core, we have a lovely story about friendship as Elmer and Boris become best friends. It is just so nice to watch and I think the movie has a great message for children to take onboard as well.
As well as the friendship thing, we also have Elmer being the brave one and rubbing off on Boris in that regard and we also have Boris’s kinder and gentle nature rubbing off on Elmer. It is just such a lovely and heartwarming story from start to end. However, there is also a nice amount of action and humor to keep things ticking along.
My Father’s Dragon has a fantastic animation style. It has a classic 2D animation style that really does help with the storybook type story that is being told. The voice cast is just wonderful with the very talented young, Jacob Tremblay as Elmer and Stranger Thing’s Gaten Matarazzo as Boris.
I had such a wonderful time with My Father’s Dragon, so wonderful that I am still mad I missed out on this at the theatre. If you want to watch an animated movie that will make you smile, laugh and feel like a child again, My Father’s Dragon is a movie that is very hard to beat in that regard.
