written directed by Dean DeBlois
In this day and age of never-ending film franchises, it is refreshing, nay, shocking to see a profitable film franchise actually end, but that's exactly what the popular How to Train Your Dragon series does with the new film How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. It's an emotional, if sometimes flawed coda for the enjoyable film series.
For the last several months following the last film, Viking Chief Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), his girlfriend Astrid (America Ferrera) and the rest of his friends from the island of Berk have spent their time saving dragons from dragon trappers and bringing them back home to Berk, where they offer them sanctuary. Unfortunately, this has made Berk a target for dragon trappers everywhere, particularly the deadly Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham) who has been hired by the dragon trappers to capture the dragons of Berk, especially the alpha, the Night Fury, Hiccup's best friend Toothless. Hiccup, during flashbacks from his childhood remembers a place that his late father Stoick (Gerard Butler) told him about where dragons roam freely and safely, a hidden world, and decides that the Berkians must move there with their dragons. Time is not on their side as Grimmel closes in on them, and Hiccup will have to call on the help of his family, namely his mother Valka (Cate Blanchett) and his friends Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig) and Tuffnut (Justin Rupple), Gobber (Craig Ferguson) and Astrid to face the oncoming threat, especially since Grimmel has a particularly formidable weapon to use against the otherwise indomitable Toothless: a female Night Fury.
One nice thing about framing a movie as a final installment is that it helps give the narrative emotional heft because we viewers know that the characters won't be doing this anymore. Fortunately, apart from the hype, the film earns its emotional resonance when Hiccup realizes he has tough choices to make. There's also a sense of real peril given that Stoick has already met his maker in the previous film (um, spoiler alert) and so we know that character death is a real possibility. This adds a sense of menace to Grimmel and his fantastically-designed dragon-scorpion hybrids. A good chunk of the fun of these movies, which, together with the Kung Fu Panda films, are my favorite in Dreamworks Animation's catalog, is seeing what new outlandish designs for dragons the artists and animators can come up with, and the creatures here are a lot more intriguing than the generic gigantic dragons that were so central to the plots of the first two films. Size doesn't always matter. These dragons are defined by their unique abilities (spitting venom, scorpion tail).
There are some false notes in the narrative as the film kind of departs from the first movie in characterizing Stoick as wanting to leave the dragons in peace rather than destroy them, which was what he was all about in the first film. Also, the film wants to emphasize that Hiccup doesn't need Toothless to be a great man, and yet about the only thing he does without Toothless in the film is, well, rescue Toothless, so the filmmakers kind of undercut themselves there. I also had some issues with the film's bad guy, but I think Abraham acquits himself well, as do all of the returning cast members.
Still, this is still a film in which the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, and apart from the generally strong storytelling, the movie makes its case with astonishing visuals that are, thanks to the leaps in technology in the nine years that have passed since the first film, leagues upon leagues improved in terms of quality and overall craftsmanship from the first film. In terms of visual pizzazz this movie is every bit the equal of anything coming out of Pixar from the rendering to the camera movement to the sheer beauty of what appears on the screen; it's a real treat. Contributing to this sensory feast is a soaring musical score by series mainstay John Powell that calls back to the familiar themes of the series but adds quite a few stirring choral pieces. Powell received an Academy Award nomination for his work on the first film, and personally I wouldn't mind if he got another nod for this one.
To anyone who cynically scoffs at the "last installment" hype, I can categorically say that whatever direction the franchise may take from here, it's done with this particular set of characters, and I'm happy to say that despite a few missteps, this particular iteration of this film franchise still managed to end on a high note.
8/10
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