Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon 2 Review

Should be named: How To Make A Great Sequel
(image from: https://www.howtotrainyourdragon.com/images/uploads/properties/final_poster_rated.jpg)

Like most of the movies I've seen this season, I wasn't expecting How To Train Your Dragon 2 to be good nor would it live up to the success of it's predecessor. So going into this movie, I wasn't expecting TOO much, but ratings on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes have been telling me that it's stellar.

That can't be right, almost all Dream Works sequels are terrible!

Well, in the end, How To Train Your Dragon 2 ends up being one of this years best animated movies and even manages to be just as good, if not better, than the original.


How To Train Your Dragon 2 takes place several years after the original movie and follows Hiccup and his trusty Nightfury dragon Toothless as they take on another adventure of epic proportions. Literally.
The basis of the plot revolves around Hiccup's conflict with becoming chief of Berk and the process of trying to find out what he wants to do and who he really is. Jay Baruchel delivers another fantastic performance as Hiccup, though I found it a little strange that his voice wouldn't change much over several years. Minor gripe, but nothing serious, don't worry.

As the film goes on, the conflict Hiccup feels is put aside for some more serious matters. Someone is out there trapping dragons and using them for their own personal army. Here, we're introduced to the main antagonist Drago Bludvist who believes that controlling dragons through sheer power and intimidation is the way to go. Of course, Hiccup doesn't believe this since dragons are kind and intelligent creatures that will show loyalty and trust if you give them the same.

Basically, without spoiling much, How To Train Your Dragon 2 revolves around the basic plot of becoming your own person, fighting for what you believe in, good versus evil, etc etc. While it's incredibly basic and very predictable, it's executed flawlessly. You care for the characters, you care for the world, you care for the lore. It's something that the original movie did so well on that I'm glad it was kept in tact in the sequel.

Some highlights to point out regarding the film would be the spectacular visuals and the moving sound track. Once again, we're treated to some top notch animation by Dream Works best team (as far as I'm concerned) and an amazing score that may have a chance at winning another academy award.

Speaking of visuals...it's incredible what the film makers have done. Everything from beard hair to volumetric clouds, the entire movie was filled with small detail that was just a smorgasbord for my eyes to feast on. At times I'd forget that this was an animated film because environments were so incredibly detailed, it was like I was watching some sort of live action documentary. And while the character designs were still quite cartoonish, they had detail on them all the way down to how their skin looked like up close. It was phenomenal.

The one thing that kept coming back to my mine while watching this movie was that the visuals were something we'd see from a Blizzard CGI trailer for Star Craft or something. It baffles me at the amount of detail animation studios can put into their films nowadays and How To Train Your Dragon 2 is a prime example of a perfect blend between technology and storytelling.

This becomes very apparent when the character show raw emotion on screen. Every tear, every smile, every piece of rage is displayed perfectly in that you forget that you were watching an animated movie in the first place. It's almost as if the characters were very much alive, dragon and human alike.

5/5

Positives:
+ An amazing sequel
+ Striking visuals
+ Powerful soudtrack
+ Genuine characters
+ Just a whole heap of adventure and action all rolled into one
+ Technology and Story Telling work together flawlessly

Negatives:
- A tad predictable


Rating Key:
1 - Don't bother wasting your time. Don't even look at the trailers.
2 - Save it for bad movie night or for background noise during sex if it's not entertaining enough.
3 - Not bad, kinda average, but don't watch it twice in a short amount of time.
4 - Good, worth a second watch and worthy of a group viewing for marathons or what not.
5 - Awesome! Has the chance to be a classic and something that you should TOTALLY bug your friends into watching!