 |
| How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) |
Alright, I'm going to start this review the same way I did my other two Dragons movies. If the first movie was beautiful and the second movie was f***ing beautiful, then this movie was downright phenomenal. Even as someone who was going into this expecting the visuals to be fantastic because, well, that's kind of where we're at with animated movies in general by this point, I was still stunned and I was still impressed. The attention to detail is staggering, and almost infuriating at times. There is a scene which takes place entirely above the clouds that I swear looked exactly like actual, real-life clouds. That in and of itself doesn't mean much. But, like how fake graphics I can overlook if they still look pretty, realistic cloud effects mean jack all unless they look pretty, and holy crap, they so do. And, again, we kind of expect visuals like this nowadays, which is kind of sad, to be honest. But, again, even though I expected to be impressed, I was absolutely blown away. The movement, the colours, the lighting, the variety, the sheer amount of things on screen. The fact remains that this movie is just stunning to look at, and it deserves to be praised for it.
 |
| The Light Fury and Toothless |
While I'm gushing over things that we've come to expect from the Dragons series by this point, the soundtrack still kicks ass. The funny thing is that I was expecting more leitmotifs from the previous films than we actually got. They barely show up at all, which is a good thing, but not what I was expecting from a final chapter in a franchise. When they do show up though... yeesssssssss. It's not just that they play music from the past movies, that's not what makes it so great, but it's the moments they choose to play them that just fit with the moments they were used in the originals and takes you back to those moments. Not just that, but the way they update those tracks and don't just play them ripped from the originals. John Powell deserves all the praise he's gotten and more for the soundtracks to all three of these movies. While I'm talking about the past movies, it's worth knowing going in that there are a few moments in this movie that directly harken back to the past movies. The good thing about callbacks like these, or, at least, how they're used in this movie, is that they never feel hamfisted or shoehorned or that they're there just for the sake of being a callback. It's really well structured that way, and the movie is just well-written overall, but I'll get to that.
 |
| America Ferrara as Astrid |
The characters continue to be the best part of this series. There are a lot of balls in the air here, in that the cast is surprisingly big, and everyone is well-defined, but luckily they keep the focus where it should be: on the relationship between a boy and his dragon. The focus occasionally shifts to Hiccup and Astrid, and sometimes to the many side-characters, but the majority of the movie is telling the story of Hiccup and Toothless, and rightly so. This is a powerful story they're telling here, and it works because the characters are well-defined, and occasionally flawed. I haven't mentioned it yet, but Jay Baruchel deserves all the praise in the world for his performance as Hiccup in these movies. He is a part of what made this character so great, and this is no exception. Everyone else is still great here, but touching on the only new main character, the villain Grimmel, I feel like he's the strongest villain we've had in this series. Not only is he menacing and a true threat, but he's the only villain we've had that's specifically gone after Hiccup on purpose. It just makes him that much more of a menace. They also touch on his backstory just enough that makes him complimentary to Hiccup just that little bit more. It's really only one line, but sometimes one line is all you need. He didn't need to have a sympathetic backstory and he didn't need to have this big, grand, complicated plan with lots and lots of steps along the way. Sometimes the simple plan of going after one dragon can be incredibly effective.
 |
| F. Murray Abraham as Grimmel |
So, I've talked about this movie as a movie, but now I need to talk about it as an ending. It might seem weird to do this, but this movie was specifically advertised as an ending and the entire plot is structured around it being the ending, so it's part of the movie, and the fact that it succeeds entirely on that front just makes the movie so much better for it. It being a good ending doesn't disqualify it from being a good movie on its own. If anything, it just enhances the experience even more. And, as an ending, I do feel like I could have used a little bit more. Maybe if the movie was just 5 minutes longer, with just a little more interactions between Toothless and Hiccup at one important part (which wasn't the ending but I won't say what the moment was since the movie came out today) it could have made the ending that little bit more impactful than it was. That is incredible nitpicking on my part, since the ending as it was? I cried. I cried and I cried. Then I thought I was done crying. And then I cried some more. This is the first time I have ever properly cried in a cinema. I saw it coming, as well. I knew where the ending was going, ever since they announced it would be the final movie. And it still hit me. It was like I was punched in the gut. It really felt like my childhood was ending. I wouldn't say I grew up with these movies, but they were an important part of my childhood. The original Dragons movie was the first film I saw as a kid that really made me appreciate cinema, and I'm not trying to sound pretentious when I say that, but it's just true. This trilogy has been fantastic, and the fact that it ended on such a strong note means more to me than you could probably ever understand.
 |
| Jay Baruchel as Hiccup |
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) is absolutely my favourite movie in this trilogy. You could say that's just because the ending was so great, but that's a part of the movie. Besides, the ending isn't the only great thing here. The entire film was exactly what I wanted it to be and more. The fact that this is the first Dragons movie I went into fully expecting to love it and I was still blown away? Yeah, that's a good movie right there. 9.5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment