Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon 2

Movie Review
by Tyler Adams

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)
PG; 102 min

"How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a decent animated film that does not live up to the original's quality."

I loved the first How to Train Your Dragon, which makes my disappointment with this sequel a big surprise. Maybe it was an expectations game, where I had none for the first one and tons for the second... I'll never know for sure. What I do know is this movie just felt off. Yes, it was beautiful to look at and had some nice set pieces, but the characters and story just fell flat for me. Numerous plot holes litter the script, and the voice work never quite lives up to the tone they were trying to achieve. In the end, the film loses itself in an overly busy script that doesn't know what it wants to be. I give How to Train Your Dragon 2 a generous YELLOW LIGHT.

RED LIGHTS

• Too many plot holes, even for an animated film. Armies disappear, mothers leave children to protect dragons that already have an all powerful alpha protector and the bad guy has his own all powerful alpha for some reason.
• There is an odd running joke of all the ancillary characters flirting and fighting for others attention.
• Pacing needed a little help. I found myself almost falling asleep in the middle and it felt much longer than it really was.

YELLOW LIGHTS

• John Powell's score (which is lovely) becomes fairly repetitive, while trying to sneak in some odd modern accompaniment.
• The voice work, while strong in places, feels off. Most of this is from a very talented Jay Baruchel who's intro and epilogue were almost laughably out of place.
• The film throws out a lot of themes: death, growing up, estranged parents, duty, forgiveness, abandonment. Frozen dealt with many of the same issues, and they used love to show how we can overcome. Here, you never quite know what message they were trying to get across.

GREEN LIGHTS

• Really well shot action sequences with a lot of moving parts. The Alpha battle in particular was a stunning spectacle.
• Dreamworks Animation really flexes it's muscle here, giving us a beautifully realized world with well designed character and dragons.