written and directed by Dean DeBlois
The first How to Train Your Dragon movie back in 2010 wasn't quite groundbreaking, what with various plot devices borrowed from other movies from coming-of-age awkwardness to the hero learning the truth about his supposed enemy that has been featured in various movies like Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai and Avatar, but it was definitely entertaining in a way that few animated movies before it had ever been. It was, to my mind as well as to those of many viewers and critics, among Dreamworks Animation Studios' best efforts, and it even compares well to some of the better movies of the studio that set the gold standard in computer-generated animated feature films, Pixar. That film had a great deal of heart, arguably more than anything that Pixar has produced after Toy Story 3.
What surprised me about this year's sequel, simply titled How to Train Your Dragon 2, was not that it was as good as, if not even slightly better than the first movie, but that the filmmakers were willing to have their story take a slightly dark, if not entirely unpredictable turn this time around.
Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), the hero of the first film, is grown up now and having the time of his life with his pet dragon Toothless; thanks to his flying companion his world has expanded far beyond the boundaries of his small island of Berk, the inhabitants of which have come to embrace the dragons they feared and hated in the last movie, including Hiccup's own father and the village Chief, Stoick (Gerard Butler). Stoick, who is getting on in years, wants Hiccup to succeed him as the chief of Berk, much to Hiccup's displeasure. While off exploring (and escaping his father), Hiccup makes a startling, life-changing discovery that changes everything he thought he knew about his past, and not a moment too soon, for looming on the horizon is a threat that could spell big trouble for Berk, it inhabitants, and its dragons. Berk's dragon riders Hiccup, Astrid (America Ferrara), Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and twins Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig) and Tuffnut (T.J. Miller), and their dragons will need every ounce of skill they have to save their community from a menace that is unlike anything they've ever faced before.
Without wading into spoiler territory, I have to say that this film quite easily has the most heart of any Dreamworks movie since Kung Fu Panda, which is possibly down to the fact that the two films share, to a small extent, the theme of unlikely heroes rising to the occasion. This film actually tackles pretty heady themes like responsibility, and reconciling one's desires with one's duty, and while, again, they aren't exactly reinventing the wheel, writer/director Dean DeBlois and his cast and crew manage to turn in a story that is genuine and heartfelt, so much so that when things take a turn for the tragic late in the film, the impact is quite meaningful. Some reviewers have declared this film to The Empire Strikes Back, obviously for its darker tone in relation to the lighter-than-air feel of the first film, and in that sense at least, the movie is groundbreaking in its willingness to leave what is likely its audience's comfort zone to tell a compelling story.
The animation and rendering are, as they were before, simply astonishing, and it was gratifying to see that, with the expansion of Hiccup's world, several new dragon designs were also introduced. I do admit, however, to being vaguely disappointed by the design of one very important new dragon; apart from its size, it simply doesn't come off as imposing as it should be. Still, this didn't detract all that much from the overall narrative effectiveness.
I am happy to report that there's plenty to like here for the young and the young at heart.
8.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment