Review of How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) by Dmitri M — 17 Mar 2015

Top Movies of 2014 - #3.

So here we reached the first 5 Star movie of the year. 2014 was a year of disappointments (I'm looking at you Interstellar), and How to Train your Dragon 2, the sequel to one of Dreamwork's best movies, released in an age where their films have had a decline in quality, is not one of these disappointments. If anything, How to Train your Dragon 2 is arguably better than its predecessor. Like the last one, this movie has the same lovable characters and great special effects we come to expect, but what really puts it ahead is the story about Hiccup's mother. Hiccup finds his mother after her disappearance 19 years ago, learning that she, just like him, loves dragons, and it's touching for Hiccup to be reunited with the parent he took after. But what really made this plot so heart-warming was the reunification of Hiccup's parents. The song they sang together had so much joy in it that it left a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. The movie could've ended right there and I would've been satisfied. But then it continued, and the events after broke my heart. It went from joy to sorrow right after and showed how Dreamworks was not afraid to take risks and was willing to embrace the concept of loss. That sorrow become anger, and makes the final act extremely satisfying. Toothless goes full badass (he reacted to the Mega Bracelet and became Mega Toothless X) and showed that he is the king of the dragons, ending with a satisfying finale to a satisfying movie.