Review of How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) by Vahn — 24 Aug 2014

Simply put, HTTYD 2 was a very surprising movie that blew my expectations away: the first movie was already very well done, so I had high hopes for it to be good. And not only it did not disappoint...but I can almost say that this was the best sequel I've ever seen, since probably Kung Fu Panda 2.

What works in this movie is probably how the story is actually set 5 years in the future: our characters have grown up and that's already a very nice touch to the story, especially since they are also different in their behaviours, especially Hiccup being a very more reliable character and unlike the first movie, where he was more of a "passive" character, he's now always in the battle and you do feel such high respect on seeing his sense of exploration and of knowledge. The music is fantastic, the story is interesting and follows extremely well the first movie almost naturally, and all the characters are so likeable that it's hard to pick a favourite one (SPOILER: heck, my sister cried when Stoick died nearly the end of the movie: I was not expecting that to happen and all in the theatre actually cried when that happened: It's rare when a movie makes everyone cry like that)) and It's just a pleasent movie to watch and watch again.

However if I have to pick a BIG flaw of the movie, that would definitely be the Villain.

I have absolutely no idea who the bad guy was: we see a scene in the past where he tried to submit the village chiefs, and then we move in the future (the movie's present) where he's just bad and controls dragons. That's. It.

Sure, we know -a- reason why he hates dragons, but he has absolutely no character growth and we basically get nothing out of him: he came as he went, and when he dies it's as if nothing happened. That was a huge flaw because it had everything except a well made villain (On this regard, I heard that in the beginning that the main villain was going to be Hiccup's mother, and as much as that idea is a lot more darker than the movie really is, I think it would have worked MUCH better than putting in a random bad guy with basically no character development).

Aside that big flaw, nothing else really ruins it: I honestly didn't expect this movie to be as good as the original, but I'm almost sure that it's even better! Opinions may vary, but I'm definitely gonna watch this movie again, once it comes out in dvd.