Saw How To Train Your Dragon 2 in theaters in July and I am now finally happy with my review. There are minor spoilers in here, mostly dealing with information revealed in the trailers.
As always we'll start with the downsides. First off, this movie seemed a little confused; while Hiccup and Toothless are still the indubitable stars there seemed to be a lot of half developed side shows going on with people who can't decide which side they're on, and a ridiculous love triangle. Secondly, while Astrid was pretty important in the first movie she spends a lot of time being dramatically useless. I mean, she's there but she says little of importance and does even less. Also, while there were a few giggle worthy moments there was very little of the sarcastic and ironic humour that made the first movie so fantastic. And while the movie starts out at a good pace, with plenty of time for characters, dragons, landscapes et cetera, the last third just feels rushed, and the speed seemed to ruin what had the potential to be the most important moment of the entire film.
On the upside, oh my word the animation! The textures! The colours! The new variety's of dragons! There is so much to fangirl about when we're talking visual stuff. One of my main complaints about the first movie was the limited varieties of dragons with Hiccup having the only unique one. That got resolved, and fast. Another, rather unexpected upside was Valka, Hiccup's mother. She was simply amazing, and the chemistry between her and Stoick was absolutely adorable. Over on the evil side the villain was pretty intimidating and managed not to get too overshadowed. Unfortunately like so many other parts of this film, all the ingredients for epic "bad guyness" were there, but not fully developed.
Altogether this film was not the almost impeccable, epic, touching movie that the first film was. Through half finished character development, weak plot, and inconsistent timing, it just failed to compare. Which, to be honest was a complete disappointment. How To Train Your Dragon 2 has all the right ideas, characters, designs, actors; it was just one movie that I want to hand back to the producers and say 'I think you sent the wrong film to the box office, this one isn't done yet!'
As always we'll start with the downsides. First off, this movie seemed a little confused; while Hiccup and Toothless are still the indubitable stars there seemed to be a lot of half developed side shows going on with people who can't decide which side they're on, and a ridiculous love triangle. Secondly, while Astrid was pretty important in the first movie she spends a lot of time being dramatically useless. I mean, she's there but she says little of importance and does even less. Also, while there were a few giggle worthy moments there was very little of the sarcastic and ironic humour that made the first movie so fantastic. And while the movie starts out at a good pace, with plenty of time for characters, dragons, landscapes et cetera, the last third just feels rushed, and the speed seemed to ruin what had the potential to be the most important moment of the entire film.
On the upside, oh my word the animation! The textures! The colours! The new variety's of dragons! There is so much to fangirl about when we're talking visual stuff. One of my main complaints about the first movie was the limited varieties of dragons with Hiccup having the only unique one. That got resolved, and fast. Another, rather unexpected upside was Valka, Hiccup's mother. She was simply amazing, and the chemistry between her and Stoick was absolutely adorable. Over on the evil side the villain was pretty intimidating and managed not to get too overshadowed. Unfortunately like so many other parts of this film, all the ingredients for epic "bad guyness" were there, but not fully developed.
Altogether this film was not the almost impeccable, epic, touching movie that the first film was. Through half finished character development, weak plot, and inconsistent timing, it just failed to compare. Which, to be honest was a complete disappointment. How To Train Your Dragon 2 has all the right ideas, characters, designs, actors; it was just one movie that I want to hand back to the producers and say 'I think you sent the wrong film to the box office, this one isn't done yet!'
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