Review of How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) by Alwayswatching — 29 Aug 2014

Hiccup, the main character of the movie, lives in a small viking town called Berk. Thanks to his studies and constant analysis of dragons, people of Berk now a lot more about dragons and understand them better. They are living peacefully with tamed dragons until a group of dragon hunters arrive from a neighboring place. From then the story gets twisted and we unpredicted events unfold.

Hiccup constantly pushes to solve the problems with conversation and dialog unlike most vikings in his town who are ready to fight and use violence. He relentlessly engages with the “enemies” and keeps a discourse with them. He constantly studies them and tries to understand them.

There are two strong themes in the movie that made me love it. The first theme is the relation between humans and animals which symbolically represents the relation between any two group of adversaries: two races, two ethnicities, followers of two religions, or even two nations. Through the movie, when a group studies and understands the other group, animosities subside, mutual respect flourishes, and the common cores of both groups bind them together. In the call for understanding other groups, this movie implicitly asks us to throw away all the preconceptions and dogma and look at them, judge them, and treat them fairly and justly.

The second strong theme in the movie is Hiccup's constant search for his identity. He is confused about who he really is and why he is different from all other vikings. But he also ceaselessly searches and seek what he wants to do with his life. He is fearless when he faces challenges and new experiences.

How to train your dragon 2, is a phenomenal movie, the kind that you have wait years for to come and the kind that will fill you with joy whenever you remember. It is extremely fun to watch with an amazing story and unbelievable cinematography. It is a kids movie for adults. After watching this movie, all you want to do is flying and pondering on the questions that it touches.