HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD Review

The How To Train Your Dragon series has become one of the more underrated animated series since the first one came out back in 2010. It spawned a really good sequel that was just as good, if not better than the first one. Now we come to the third and final movie in the series titled How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) and it couldn't be more of a fitting ending to a really great franchise.

In this outing we follow Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) as he is now the chief of his village. The village is starting to become overpopulated because of so many dragons that the humans share their village with. Hiccup plans to seek out the Hidden World, a place his father (Gerard Butler), used to tell him about when he was a little boy. This place is supposedly a sanctuary for all different kinds of dragons and would be a perfect place for the overabundance of dragons that are now in the village. To go along with seeking out a new place to live Hiccup's dragon Toothless has discovered he is not the only Night Fury around as he befriends a white Night Fury, or Light Fury as they call it. A new villain in the form of dragon hunter Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham) causes trouble for everyone in the village as well leading to the humans and dragons having to save both of their kind.

This series has stayed consistent in pretty much all aspects. From the animation designs, to the voice acting to the writing everything has generally worked out for the best. In How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) all of that continues here and we get some of the best emotional pieces out of any of the three movies thus far. The relationship between Hiccup and Toothless has been nothing short of amazing and here there are some decisions that have to be made that will tug at the heart strings more than you would expect. Toothless himself has become one of the best animated characters of this generation. Combining aspects of a dog and a cat into a dragon gives the film makers so much they can do to build this character into a sweet and lovable animal.

The returning voice cast gives it their all once again for the third go around. Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Craig Ferguson and Cate Blanchett are still the standouts as they were in the previous movies. Gerard Butler does come back briefly and still gives one of his better performances. F. Murray Abraham is a nice addition as the villain here and it's nice to see the character voiced by Kit Harington return from the previous movie. They do try to give the side characters played by Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig and Justin Rupple more to do this time around but their characters still feel like they don't add much to everything that's going on around them.

There really aren't too many negatives that come up here. The worst thing that can be said about How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) is with it being the supposed final entry in the series you can get a pretty good sense of how things are going to end. Even though the ending is predictable the journey there is still fun and heartwarming. Another thing, that is also very reminiscent of the Kung Fu Panda series, is that all three of these movies feel a little too similar. Story wise they get a little repetitive considering all three movies seem to be about dragon hunters that want to capture and harm Toothless.

Overall, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) is the perfect ending to this series. It does a great job creating a finale for these characters that gives them all a great send off. There are many laughs to be had, great action sequences and a lot of touching moments that will leave audiences more than satisfied.

I give How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World a 8 out of 10.