As Hiccup fulfills his dream of creating a peaceful dragon utopia, Toothless’ discovery of an untamed, elusive mate draws the Night Fury away. When danger mounts at home and Hiccup’s reign as v...
It’s time to close out February with what many people are considering one of the greatest trilogies of all time with the third installment in what has to be Dreamworks most successful franchise since Kung Fu Panda: “How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.”
This follows Hiccup, who after taking the position of chief after his late father on Berk manages to take control of the village peacefully and without any issues. Seriously though, it does raise a few questions as to how in the hell he manages to take control of an entire village and not one bad thing is said about him. You’d think he’d have some more flaws left. Anyways, he and his other friends have spent the last year rescuing captured dragons and bringing them home. But home has become overpopulated with dragons so it’s up to Hiccup to find them all another home and search for the long lost Hidden World. Unfortunately, a new villain arrives on the loose and attempts to take all the dragons for himself by manipulating Toothless to fall for another night fury. This causes a rift between Hiccup and Toothless as he struggles to question whether or not it’s time to let Toothless go.
It’s worth mentioning that even though I’ve seen scenes from the previous two installments, I, again, did not watch either movie from beginning to end around the time they came out so I’m very late to the bandwagon here. Now that I’m all caught up, I can definitely see why this trilogy is so beloved. From intriguing characters to engaging plot-threads to nail-gripping twists and shocks, utterly dark moments with a incredible sense of humor and amazing cinematography with a kick-ass score, this trilogy well and truly earns the title of being one of, if not Dreamworks best franchise.
5 years later, and that winning streak continues. It doesn’t strike out as opposed to the others but it definitely ends this series on a very successful high note.
I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot in recent times but when it comes to the animation, there really isn’t much that I have to say other than its beautiful. It is, I believe, the most visually appealing film out of the three. It’s vivid, it’s colorful, it’s very expressive, every single scene has a lot of valor and man-crafted effort behind it and a nice hint of realism buried within its structure that really helps give the movie that extra pop. There are multiple times I look back at the first and second film compared to now and I keep asking myself: “Holy crap! Are you sure this is actually from the same series?” This just shows that the jumping graphic and animation quality from the first to the second to the third can’t be denied.
Not only does it show how much these characters hav grown and changed internally and externally but that, within itself, does make the action sequences and chase scenes all the more exciting. I don’t feel the need to fully go into detail here since they continue to up the ante with these scenes with each movie as they proceed to take place but the cinematography, I feel the need to mention. There are certain scenes like the hidden world reveal or the final battle scene that I feel as if wouldn’t be as effective or give off a certain vibe if the camerawork wasn’t redirected or tilted or in a certain way. As it is, it only elevated that particular point to another extent because the camera helps make it feel like we’re actually there.
And the musical score by John Powell just adds more to whatever emotional resonance needs to be felt, happiness, joy, pain, sadness, desperation, pure excitement.
As far as the storyline and narrative goes, it is essentially the weaker out of all the three not because it reeks of cliches on top of cliches or lacks originality or anything like but because this one is less interesting than the previous film. At least in my opinion: I have this habit of making a boring aspect in a movie seem interesting but here I admit that the plot could’ve used a little less. And here’s the thing: Their journey to find the Hidden World was already intriguing enough as it is as well as Toothless’ staggering growth from dragon to....a dog and his relationship with the Light Fury. Not to mention Hiccups progression and his stubbornness to let Toothless go mattered a lot more to me than the conflict surrounding the main villain.
Speaking of villain, yeah.....that’s kind of the overwhelming issue I have with this movie apart from this film distancing itself from its predecessors more darker tone: Grimmel sucks as the main antagonist. Now he does have this menacing appeal to how he looks and the way he kind of speaks since he’s voiced by freakin F. Murray Abraham but as far as motivations go, he cares only about the dragons. They’re not bad as motivations go but a lot was missing because overall, I couldn’t care less about the guy. He was just boring. The first one didn’t need a main antagonist, the second one kind of had one immune to it, hell, none of these movies appear to have much of an interesting or compelling villain to further drive along the storyline even though everything is has been handled down pat.
Again, this is one of those instances in movies where the inclusion of an antagonist in a story just doesn’t really gel together with the rest of the plotline because it’s not really needed. In a story with characters as interesting and nearly as three-dimensional as this, you think they’d do the same for the antagonists.
I wish I could spoil the ending for you guys but I have too much respect to do so. All I will say is that I’ve read that E.T actually inspired the ending for this movie. If that is true, then this was so absolutely worth it.
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“How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” should be the equivalent of how every other animated or live-action trilogy should add up to when it reaches the end of their run. It takes the gorgeous 3D animation, the interchangeable characters, the stellar action set pieces, the breathtaking cinematography, the captivating musical scores, the emotional but heart-tugging messages, everything that made its predecessors so adorable, so lovable, so relatable, so reeling in awesomeness, it all carries over here. The only major downside is the fact that despite how good this movie is, despite the fact that it’s one of those rare gems in a trilogy where the third film doesn’t suck, it is still effectively the weakest out of the three. It separates away from the darker and more mature tone that its predecessor set, the two main story arcs that come together seamlessly wrap up to the benefit of one arc as opposed to the other and there was no need for an antagonist here. In a movie this simple but so complex in its execution, you either give its villain the Drago treatment or you don’t wanna include him here PERIOD. Here, it should’ve been the latter.
As far as I know though, these stories aren’t exactly very original as far as these movies go but it isn’t so much on what the story is that matters more than it is how it’s executed. It’s how these stories are presented plus the relationships they build plus the journey they take to get to the destination that matters the most and the presentation for how all three of these movies executed it is the very reason why we’ve been able to have so much fun with it for this long. But all things considered, it manages to end this series on a high note, the way it deserves.
All good things come to an end......and there’s no denying we’re gonna miss you, Toothless.
