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How To Train Your Dragon 2

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In 2010 one of the biggest movie surprises of the year was How to Train Your Dragon.  The title alone looks like just another churned out movie to try to get kids to buy movie tickets.  But then I went in and saw it and I was blown away.  It had a heartfelt story about a boy and his pet and challenging the ideals of his father.  The story was simple and beautifully told and now whenever it is on TV I will always turn it on.  The bar had been set high for a sequel and there would be no sneaking up on the audience this time.

Where the first movie was about Hiccup, still voiced by the perfectly awkward Jay Baruchel, growing up and confronting his father, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is about replacing him.  Yes the boy will need to become the man as his father Stoick (Gerard Butler) is looking to retire as chief of the village and pass the mantle onto his son.  But that is not a responsibility he wants to shoulder, he would rather explore the world, charting new lands with his best friend Toothless.

The story also takes on a new villain named Drago (Djimon Hounsou) who wants to amass a dragon army to rid the world of this violent threat against man.  While Hiccup still believes that there is good in everyone Drogo seems adamant in teaching him, and the children in the audience, some men are evil and just want to watch the world burn.  While Drogo could be a great villain for most movies, what I liked about the first one was the lack of villains.  Instead the first movie was a simple story about the dynamic between father and son.  In the sequel the story becomes overly complicated, injected with too many characters.

But How to Train Your Dragon 2 looks great.  The years in between movies has served for quite the advancement in technology that the animators take full advantage of.  I won’t say the movie looks real, but the scenes where Hiccup is flying through the air are a wonder.  The different landscapes and battle scenes will definitely help keep the kids interested.

And that’s what I need to remember, this movie was made for kids.  In that vein, the dialogue between the comic relief characters of Snotlout, Fishlegs, Tuffnut, Ruffnut, and my personal favorite Gobber (Craig Ferguson) is sometimes silly just for the sake of being silly.  Last time these characters had a little more depth to them, here they are asked to tell their silly jokes and then exit stage right.

The movie does take a darker turn to reflect the more grown-up tones the story tries to deal with.  It all happens so fast that I don’t think it would be too traumatic for any youngster seeing the movie. Plus there is enough time and resolution in the film for everyone to leave with their happy ending.

Your kids should like How to Train Your Dragon 2 and DreamWorks put enough production value and wonderful voice actors in it that you won’t mind re-watching it 1000 times either.  But what was so great about the first movie was the simplicity of it all.  The sequel isn’t better than the first one, it may even be a couple steps behind it, but a couple steps behind great is still pretty good. B

 

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