Review of How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) by J-Hound R — 02 Jan 2015

I was a little disappointed with How to Train Your Dragon 2. I enjoyed the first one a lot more but looking at the critics score and the audience score obviously I am in the minority. Please read this review with a grain of salt.

The beginning of the film looked fantastic. The animators at Dreamworks really outdid themselves this time. The colors and the characters were very vibrant and visually pleasing throughout the whole movie. I thought the story line was interesting but there were a few instances in the film that I thought were unnecessary. How to Train Your Dragon 2 is very dark. They have a lot more death in it that didn't seem like it was all that necessary for the plot. When someone dies in a film, I believe it should in someway help drive the story. I did not feel that was the case for this. A lot of the darker scenes that had death in them were reconciled within 10-15 minutes of them happening. To me, I just didn't see the point of them dying. At the end I wasn't happy and I wasn't sad. I just felt ok and that is why I gave this a middle score of 3 stars. It is a well written story and the script was done well. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys animated films. Especially if they enjoyed the first one.