Cartoon Corner- How to Train Your Dragon 2

Originally posted at the DL November 2015

God, is this really our first Dreamworks film?



So I know there's a bit of a thing in the fandom here of this film versus the first, and let's get out of the way that I don't think this film does as much for me as the first.  I think the spectacle bits of the first were more memorable, and more substantially the long stretches of naturalist stuff in the first was very cool, and on the whole this movie is trying to substitute that with the mom plotline and I actually don't get quite as much out of that.  I think after a whole film about building trust a film about loyalty is a bit redundant I guess, so the plot doesn't have the same oomph.

Not to say this movie is bad or it is bad at what it is doing.  Most of Stoic's stuff is great and shores up what could so easily have been retreads.  Actually that's probably the best way I can put it, in a lot of ways this is more his movie than Hiccup's.  There's a lot of other stuff going on in this film which is probably an equal partner in it feeling weaker overall; Hiccup's story is more compelling, and Stoic's story has to share what seems like more time with comic sidekick subplots.  Still, it's more that I wish he'd been given more chances for scenes like him seeing Valka for the first time and less moments of whatsherface pining over that loser dude.

As I understand it, How to Train Your Dragon was a book, and actually this movie is covering the second half of said book.  I'm more or less writing off the overarching plot about the dragon alphas or whatever as "things that made more sense in the book", especially given the whole naturalist bent in the first film.  I'm entirely willing to believe that a lot more about dragon behavior and socialization was there and just couldn't find a home in the film in between everything else.  I hope so because otherwise the whole Toothless plot is REALLY silly come the end.  I mean it's sweet and all but yeah.

Just not a film that left a huge impression.  It's good.

Rating- 6/10.