How to Train Your Dragon 2

Well the wait is over folks. It’s time for my thoughts on “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” which came out last month. It’s easy to take for granted the amazing wonders behind an animated feature. However, it’s useful to see how this sequel looks magical. Dragons breathe both fire and ice that looks minty. The flight in this movie doesn’t look simulated. Even when watching in 2-D, the cliff dives and cloud-surfing feels like you’re driving on the road and your car takes a dive downward on the hill, and your stomach jumps, making it feel all the more real. Then there is music to your ears when you hear the voices of Gerard Butler and Cate Blanchett. I cannot tell you how their voices were recorded because I have no knowledge of that. But when you see Stoick the Vast and his wife dance, Wesley Morris described in his review of the film, “her touch and tremulous singing transform the gravitational properties of his boulder of a body.” She makes Butler necessary.

Morris described the film as “a romance — visually, parentally, ecologically.” The movie definitely has emotional, humorous, exciting sweep that you want from a summer movie. The first one, which was based off of Cressida Cowell’s children’s series, came out four years ago. That would give digital animation process to excel, which is seen in this movie. “How to Train Your Dragon’s” swordplay lessons of taming and tolerance are here with stiffness. Morris stated in his review, “The motion was navigable but it lacked the trademark richness and eloquence that is Pixar’s stock in trade. The colors were bright, but they weren’t veering on the three-dimensional.” Dean DeBlois, the director and writer of this sequel, wrote a strong enough story for a great cartoon for the family. This sequel, where DeBlois is also at the helm, looks spectacular. Morris described that “The human motion is almost more graceful than the dragons’, and the dragons could dance for Alvin Ailey.” The half-movements, the walking and shrugging and throwing up of arms looks like the film wasn’t animated.

The protagonist is still Hiccup (which I have to say is a weird name to give your child), who after told the warlike hungry savages of his village to coexist with dragons, now is faced with the possibility to be promoted to leader. His father, Stoick, wants his son to one day take his place as chief. All of a sudden, a caped, dreadlock hunter named Drago (no, not Ivan Drago. That was “Rocky IV”), voiced by Djimon Hounson, is kidnapping dragons and using them to wage war to, you guessed it, take over the world. Hiccup, his dragon, Toothless, and his friends (America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, and Kristen Wiig) first meet up with a man named Eret (Kit Harington), who is working for Drago to capture dragons. Then Hiccup bumps into Valka, voiced by Blanchett, who Morris describes as “a socially maladroit woman with Glenn Close’s bone structure and Dian Fossey’s ponytail.” She has a magnificent dragon at the centerpiece of a giant tusked creature from the appropriately named bewilderbeast species. No doubt about it, Valka’s talent would be very impressive and useful for Drago.

Morris stated in his review, “You think Godzilla is impressive (and this latest incarnation of Godzilla is impressive), but then you see one or two of these bewilderbeasts and you wonder why reptiles from Aliens remain the benchmark for scary or classically awesome.” To look at an old National Geographic would remind you that a lot is there in the animal kingdom to scare people. For example if we look at Toothless, he’s got the eyes and fur of a panther and a salamander’s length and smoothness. A lot of these creatures look like they belong in “Star Wars” or “Avatar,” but the filmmakers of this sequel enjoy in scale. There’s big, and then there are the animals in this movie. Some of them cause danger.

Drago gets his war, some of the characters die (I won’t say who), dragons get mind-controlled by an all-powerful dragon, and the thematic ideas of control and bend, of alpha-ness, bring in the darkness that DeBois doesn’t stretch on. One dragon that gets mind-controlled does horrible things that will make kids hate him for it. Morris counters this by saying, “it’s the sort of bad news that provides a springboard for the resilience that makes these sorts of stories go.” This in a way is similar to “Star Wars.” Like everyone else, I didn’t like when Luke got his hand chopped off by Vader in “The Empire Strikes Back.” However, children seem to understand that loss is also a part of romance.

My final verdict is that if you loved the first one and you haven’t seen this one yet, go out and see it, because it won’t be in theaters for very long. If you want, see it in 3D. I didn’t see it in 3D, but I imagine the 3D in this movie is probably far better than the first one. When putting both the first and second one together, I prefer the sequel because five years have passed and the characters grow and become more likeable as well. I do hear that they are making a third one, which I will be very excited to see when that comes out.

Stay tuned next week to find out what I will review to close July out.