Review of How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) by Gimly M — 06 Mar 2015

A neat film and worthy followup to the original, that unfortunately has very little staying power.

I was emotionally rocked as the piece unfurled, and blown away by the visual spectacular as it sat there in front of me, but by the time I walked out of the cinema I realised that not only did I no longer care about the events of the film, but I could hardly even remember them.

Some would say it is unfair to judge a film aimed at younger audiences by the same standard as you would a film made for adults, but that's not the way we do things here, and so judge all films the same I shall. And though there's no glaringly obvious way to fault How to Train Your Dragon 2, (the animation was top notch, the creature design was fun and not completely uninspired, the voice acting was above acceptable and the storyline was enjoyable in a tidy beginning-middle-end kind of way) but it had neither the wonderment of the first film nor did it invoke the passion of more harshly-rated franchises.

In the way that some movies you love despite knowing they're awful, I can't say that I love How to Train Your Dragon 2 despite being quite sure it is good. I can recommend it, as I seem to remember being at least a little impressed at the time, but by the time the credits rolled I realised I was suddenly thoroughly underwhelmed.

66%.

-Gimly.