Short Review: Amazing, go see it!

 

Long Review:

Seriously, amazing, go see it...right now!

 

You know the voice actors:

Jay Baruchel plays Hiccup, the main character. You know him from This is the End, but I loved him in She’s out of My League.

Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill just to name a few.

They all do a great job and it’s fun to hear them playing these fun, Viking characters.

I’m sure I’m not the first one to say it, but Vikings are Norwegian...so why do they have Scottish accents? Oh well.

The first one was great, and usually sequels aren’t quite as good. But this one, I would have to say, is at least as good as its predecessor, if not better. 

How to Train Your Dragon 2 has a slightly more mature theme than the first one. In the first movie, Hiccup doesn’t like all the dragon killing and thinks there’s a better way, that if they just understood them and reasoned with them somehow they wouldn’t have to be enemies. Turns out he was way right and everything worked out for the better. 

But in this movie, Hiccups father, Stoic, tries to explain that although sometimes finding different way than war and fighting works, as it did with the dragons, there are other times when it’s not possible to reason or negotiate with an enemy. Sometimes the war is inevitable.

This is a much harsher reality than the happy paradigm shift at the end of the first movie where it’s discovered that their entire culture based on killing dragons was unnecessary and, in fact, they could be tamed and befriended.

The new enemy uses the dragons as his slaves, he owns them and controls them to take over and rule other people, and he doesn’t care what gets in his way.

There are other plot points that make this sequel more adult themed, but I won’t mention it as to not spoil it for you.

I love these movies, they work well as independent movies but also work well as a series as well.  Now that Avengers worked so well, of course every Movie Studio wants to cash in on the series model of producing movies, so, we can be reasonably confident they’ll make a How to Train Your Dragon 3.  I just hope it’s as good as this sequel.

Go see it.

 

here’s what Movie Bob thinks.

(warning, spoilers)

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