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| How to Train Your Dragon (2014) |
So, I thought the last film was beautiful. This one... well... how should I phrase this? If the first movie is beautiful, this one is f***ing beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. Not only is the movement just as good as the last film, if not better, but the name of the day is colour. The colour just pops in this film far more than it did in the previous. That's down to the story more than anything else, but the fact of the matter is that you can just tell that they were given a bigger budget this time. Simply put, there are shots in this movie where you could show them to someone completely out of context, and they would legitimately say 'Where was this photo taken?' I'm not exaggerating. I seriously was watching this in the cinema and momentarily forgot I was watching an animated movie. The soundtrack still kicks ass too. They bring back a lot of the leitmotifs from the previous movie, and they still bring a tear to my eye every time, but they've been enhanced in a way that I can't really explain. This is just a better soundtrack.
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| Toothless |
All your favourites from the previous film are back, and they all have new character models due to the fact that there's a five-year time jump from the last movie. The good part about this is that the models still look enough like themselves that I can buy this is how they'd grow up. The kids are no longer kids, they're adults, and it shows. But they're still young adults, and they're still a little immature and act exactly how young adults act. The movie just gets it. The most-improved medal clearly goes to Hiccup's character for one very simple reason: he actually has an arc in this movie. I love the original, you should know this by know, but the Hiccup that begins that movie is more or less the same Hiccup we have by the end. In this movie, he actually goes through a journey and a transformation. The events of this movie leave a resounding and long-lasting impact on him and he is a changed man by the end. And it all just works, and we're there along for the ride and it's just so effective.
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| Jay Baruchel as Hiccup |
There are also a few new additions in this film. Cate Blanchett plays Valka, and she does a superb job. I legitimately can't tell its Cate Blanchett in that role, she just loses herself in the character, and she has fantastic chemistry with Gerard Butler. Their interactions are among my favourite scenes in the entire movie. I can't really go into it more without encroaching in on spoiler territory, which may seem a little weird since the movie is 5 years old... God, I'm old... but I really don't want to risk it with this one. Anyway, Kit Harington plays Eret and I'll be perfectly honest, I always forget this character exists. He's a fine character, and he's likeable enough, but I always feel like he doesn't really do much by the end. Even walking out of the cinema, I couldn't quite work out what the point of him was in the long run; my only guess is that he'll play a bigger part in the next one. As for the villain, Drago... yeah, he's easily the least fleshed out character in the entire Dragons franchise. He's menacing, sure, and he does his job well as a villain, but we just never heard enough about his actual character or backstory for me to properly care. Don't get me wrong, I don't need every villain ever to have an interesting backstory or sympathetic motivations, but considering how fleshed out everything else in this movie is, the fact that he is so one-dimensional is a little odd. It stands out too much, and even though he did his job and did it well, I was a little disappointed.
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| Cate Blanchett as Valka |
One last thing I need to say about this film that I felt could have been done a little better is the pacing, specifically in the action department. So, around the end of the second act there's this massive action scene with humans and dragons fighting humans and dragons and it's honestly a better action scene than the climax of the first film. The problem is what comes next. The actual final conflict is pretty poor in comparison. It's still great for what it is, and I love watching it, but after the action scene we just saw it does feel a little weak. I feel like with a little edit and a little reshuffle, they could have reworked the events of the story and switched the two scenes without really compromising much. Again, I'm trying really hard to avoid spoilers here, but I was a little letdown by the climax. That's only for the pacing of the action, however, as in terms of the emotional pacing, it's one of the most well-structured films I've ever seen. It wasn't just the music that had me crying in this one, and that's especially impressive when you consider that at the end of the day it's a kids' movie. I honestly thought they weren't making movies like this anymore. This is a movie that just hit me to my core. I can't say that about a lot of movies, let alone kids' movies. That should tell you everything you need to know.
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| America Ferrara as Astrid |
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) is a movie that I have a couple of nitpicks about, but I still absolutely adore it. I actually prefer it to the original. Will it remain my favourite film in the entire franchise? Well... we'll just have to see... 9/10.
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