HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 (2014 - ANIMATED / FANTASY) ***1/2 out of ***** OR 7
out of 10
( Oh, great.
More fire-breathing house pets...)
CAST:
Voice of Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill,
Gerard Butler, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, Kit Harrington,
Kristen Wiig, Djimon Hounsou, T.J. Miller.
DIRECTOR:
Dean DeBlois
WARNING:
Some SPOILERS and more fire-breathing shenanigans from more flying
reptiles - straight ahead...
IT'S LIKE THIS:
In 2010's HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (review # 5), we saw what happened
when an ancient Nordic community of hairy fishermen and their - well, truth be
told - equally-hairy wives and kids found out the pesky critters (namely
dragons) they used to hate and live in fear of were actually, erm, pretty
cool. Our hero Hiccup (Jay Baruchel)
befriended a feisty dragon named Toothless, who is basically like my cat Casper
- but with the ability to exhale fire and destroy entire acres of beachfront
property. Well, actually, I guess that makes them
exactly the same then.
Anyhow, the first movie ended with the hairy
Nordic folks embracing the dragons (after much resistance, let's be clear) and
realizing, yes, they can all get along.
Even if one species is covered with scales, flies like a giant
pterodactyl, and can singe an entire forest just by belching. And even if the other one is, well, very
hairy. Proof of this is in the weekly
"tournaments" the humans have with the dragons, which is like a
really fucked-up version of Quidditch involving, well, dragons and lots of
sheep (you have to see it to understand it).
All that matters is everyone has a good time, right? But, as they say, the honeymoon can only last
so long. Which brings us to the second
movie.
Not long after the opening credits roll, one day
while during aerial acrobatics and loop-de-loops that would make even Evil
Knievel lose his lunch, Hiccup and Toothless stumble upon another group of
hairy Nordic fishermen. Turns out not
all Nordic folk have, um, embraced the "Dragons-are-people-too"
lifestyle. You see, while Hiccup's
village is pretty much ready to have its first annual "Dragon Pride
Parade", other villages have been pretty much, well, killing dragons. This other group of hairy nordics is led by
Drago (Djimon Hounsou) and his bitch bio Eret (Kit Harrington) - and they'd
like nothing more than to round up those silly flying reptiles and turn them
into mulch.
As if that wasn't headache-inducing enough,
Hiccup and his gal pal Astrid (American Ferrerra) stumble upon a huge glacier
with a cavern that houses what appears to be DragonLand. All that's missing are rollercoaster rides
and booths passing out cotton candy and jelly beans. This place is presided over by a Big-Ass King
Dragon, so-named because, well, he's pretty big and powerful and I wouldn't want to run
into him in a dark alley. In addition to
his own flying posse back home, Hiccup worries about protecting these new
dragons from wrath of Drago and Eret.
Well, actually, Eret's a lot more of a pipsqueak, so let's not worry
about him too much, shall we?
But, just because the writers are as determined as
possible to make up for the first movie's streamlined and uncomplicated plot, they
introduce yet another plot thread. It
seems the mother who died on Hiccup when he was young is actually still
alive and living in the glacier, as well.
Turns out she didn't like how the village people were treating the
dragons back then - so she chose to abandon her newborn son to live with the
dragons. She is Valka (Cate Blanchett),
and let's just say it's one of the more awkward mother-son reunions in
cinema. At this point, I was ready for
yet another plot thread to be introduced, one in which we discover that Hiccup
has an evil twin brother who left the tribe as well because he wanted to wear
ladies' underthings and dance all night to Madonna's "Material
Girl." I mean, why stop now?
Anyhow, all these disparate subplots all combine
to really fuck up poor Hiccup's day.
Compared to this shite, his task from the first flick of getting the
villagers to fall in love with the dragons was an outright walk in the
park. Will he be able to save all the
dragons from the nets and spears and torches of Drago's gang? Will he be able to reconcile with Valka? And what happens when Drago gets wind of
DragonLand and its Big-Ass King Dragon? Will
a terrible hate crime be perpetrated against them? How will this all end?
How about with one big beach barbeque? With the dragons providing the fire? Good luck with that...
BUT SERIOUSLY:
In past reviews, we've talked about the sequels and how they shouldn't
just repeat the first film, but rather expand the themes and trek into new
territory - but not too new, lest you lose the core audience. The best sequels have managed this trick of
combining the old and the new: SUPERMAN
2, THE GODFATHER PART 2, THE DARK KNIGHT, SCREAM 2, and our next review, THE
PURGE 2: ANARCHY. Our current review
fits into the same category: HOW TO
TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 takes the charm and the emotion of the original - and heads
into new, uncharted territory that isn't too different.
A large part of the appeal of both movies is the
bond between Hiccup and his dragon buddy Toothless. As voiced by Jay Baruchel, Hiccup is a great
combination of boyish vulnerability and manly conviction. The animation also displays this intriguing
duality, and its interesting to see how Hiccup resembles Andrew Garfield,
someone who has played this kind of soft-but-strong character in THE AMAZING
SPIDERMAN 1 & 2. The resemblance is
even more uncanny in HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2. One can't help but wonder if the producer intended
this.
Cate Blanchett, Djimon Hounsou, and Kit
Harrington are some of the new voices joining the leads and their returning
support, which includes America Ferrera, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Kristen
Wiig, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and T.J. Miller. They make a terrific ensemble, and their
various characters are vividly brought to life by the animation, which this
time has an almost eerie "realism" to it - compared to the more
markedly animated quality of the first one.
Still, the sequel lags just a tad behind the original one in terms of sheer spectacle, but that is minor quibble.
In the end, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2,
just like the first film, boils down to one simple but powerful thing: the love
of a boy for his pet. In this case, it
just happens to be a feisty, fire-breathing dragon. Go, boys...
