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| Review by Benn Robbins |
Go see How To Train Your Dragon 2.
Dreamworks, through the incredibly talented, returning writer/director, Dean DeBLois, knocks it out of the park once again.
I was never a fan of Dreamworks animation films produced films until 2010’s How To Train Your Dragon. Even then I chalked it up to them hiring Lilo & Stich co-creators Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois and that was that.
I loved HTTYD and I was convinced it was a fluke.
Sure I thought Kung Fu Panda was okay and Megamind pretty good. You will never convince me that ANY of the Shrek films are anything but trash bin material. I still haven’t seen Monsters vs. Aliens or Peabody and Sherman (though I really want to see the latter) and The Croods was surprisingly better than I expected.
So when I heard that there was a sequel coming to HTTYD I was psyched!
Then I read that Chris Sanders wasn’t back. I was afraid the film might be half as good, if not worse.
I am so very happy to report that I was so very wrong.
And I couldn’t be more excited.
How To Train Your Dragon 2 is just as good as the first.
If you loved the first, you will absolutely love this installment. The story is bigger, the stakes are higher and the characters are even more fun. Also the story reflects the age of characters in the movie. They are no longer young kids. This is a solid PG story and doesn’t skimp on the intense action and drama.
The action and the drama are very well-balanced between intimate moments and comedy. DeBlois uses each to heighten the effect of the other to make this film resonate with emotion and impact.
And well, Toothless.
Toothless makes me want to have a kitty cat dragon. In fact, I had a cat very similar in all aspects to Toothless living with me a few years ago named Scrambles, and though I never want to have another cat. He was about as close as I got to wanting one.
The story picks up about five years after the events of the first film and the village of Berk is thriving in complete harmony with it’s fire-breathing residents.
Hiccup, is being groomed to take over for his father as head of the village and of course Hiccup and Toothless have other plans in mind. This is a very excellent re-telling of the classic “coming of age” story.
Whilst taking to the skies with his dragon to discover new lands further and further out from where he lives, Hiccup and Toothless make two new discoveries that will change their lives, and the lives of everyone they know, forever. Danger seems to lurk in the same place as wonderful discovery and it will take everything Hiccup has learned and everything he is deep within himself to be the person he needs to be to win the day.
Returning are Jay Baruchel as Hiccup, Gerard Butler as his mountainous father, Stoik. Craig Ferguson as the blacksmith, Gobber. Hiccups’ friends Astrid (Ugly Betty’s America Ferrea), Snotlout (“America’s sweetheart”, Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Kick-Ass’ Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Tuffnut and Ruffnut (Gravity Falls’ T.J. Miller & Despicable Me 2’s Kristen Wiig).
Joining them, are new characters to the HTTYD world, the evil dragon master, Drago (Gladiator’s Djimon Hounsou), dragon whisperer, Valka (Lord of the Rings’ Cate Blanchette), and dragon trapper, Eret (Game of Thrones’ Kit Harrington).
This is very hard to write this review without giving anything away.
Suffice it to say that I would hard pressed to find one person in the audience that wasn’t clapping and cheering when the credits started rolling. This film definite lived up to my expectations and my expectations were high. The first How To Train Your Dragon is up there with some of my favorite Pixar CGI animated films, still the “gold standard” to me of brilliant film making.
Hopefully you will get to see it with a huge crowd of fans and kids. The kids, as well as the adults, were well entertained and the storytelling held their attention throughout the film. Even during the “slower” parts the kids still were quite and engaged. This, to me is such an important litmus test to the quality of a family film. No bored parents and no fidgety children.
This is just really great film making at its finest.
