Starring: Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler
In the land of Birk, dragons and vikings used to be enemies until a boy named Hiccup (Baruchel) united the two in harmony. Five years pass and whilst the people Birk have learned how to live with dragons, settlements beyond have yet to achieve that peace, especially when combined with the povers of the feared Drago Bloodfist (Djimon Houndsou). Hiccup amd his trusty dragon Toothless (Randy Thom) find Hiccup's mother, Valka (Blanchett) whose affinity for dragons may just hold the key to victory.
When it came out in 2010, How To Train Your Dragon was a bonafide sleeper hit. A film that was expected to just come and go like many of its Dreamworks brethren, but actually became extremely popular and beloved. From this film, Dreamworks have scored an entire franchise and so we get the inevitable sequel.
What we get with How To Train Your Dragon 2 is a film that isn't exactly a revolutionary new phase in animation but is an acceptable, if not superior, followup. One area in which this film has doubtlessly improved is in the quality of the animation. People are notoriously difficult to animate and this has been said to be particularly true in regards to computer animation (this is one of the main reasons why there aren't many Pixar films with major human characters) but with this film both the fluidity of the characters' movements as well as the detail of their designs is substantially improved. There's less of a marked improvement with the dragons but there are some interesting new designs.
The story is one area where an improvement over the original is clearly sought, but fails for trying too hard. The plot to the original How To Train Your Dragon movie was straightforward (boy raised to kill dragons befriends one, tries to rally his dragon-hating community to help stop a destructive "über-dragon"). This time around, we have a more complex plot involving a villain who has powers over dragons and uses hem despite seemingly holding them in contempt. The main action element of the plot barely holds together, although the tale of our hero, Hiccup reuniting with his mother is a lot more successful. Cate Blanchett, an actress of extraordinary versatility here falls short with her accent. It comes of as inconsistent. Flitting between Scottish (for some reason, the elder vikings have Scottish accents in these movies, it stops being distracting fairly quickly), North American and in one scene, Irish. But she provides the right level of warmth and toughness nonetheless.
Even Gerard Butler (an actor whose work I haven't always been fond of) gives a solid performance, better than his first film as here he portrays more tenderness and range. It's a shame however that much of our supporting cast that played a significant role in the first film (America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, T.J Miller, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig) have less to do this time around and the film misses some of that interaction, even with the addition of Kit Harrington as a brawny rogue (because who else would be voiced by Kit Harrington?).
As expected there are some moments of the film that are visually stunning. The best moments of the first film were just Hiccup and Toothless soaring through the skies and landscapes and in the sequel, it's perhaps not as breathtakingly beautiful but it has a lot of energy and excitement. The arctic-styled environments are also pleasing to the eye even though it's not entirely the 3D spectacle you would expect. So, whilst this followup may be clumsy in narrative it is at least very attractive with it and shouldn't upset fans of the first film.
How To Train Your Dragon 2 is currently showing in the US. It will be released in Scotland on the 27th of June, followed by a release date of July the 11th in the rest of the UK.
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