THE VIKING SEQUEL NO ONE ASKED FOR BUT EVERYONE GOT
The town of Berk is back in the news with the release of How to Train Your Dragon 2. After five years of peace between the bearded locals and their winged pests, things are finally looking up for the village. Of course, leave it to a skinny kid with a prosthetic leg and a flying lizard to go looking for trouble where there wasn’t any to begin with.
This time around, our young hero Hiccup stumbles upon a group of dragon trappers and a long-lost relative who apparently decided living in a cave was better than staying home and doing the dishes. While the village prepares for a war they didn’t want, the movie promises plenty of fire, ice, and a giant oversized lizard that makes the first one look like a goldfish. It’s a high-flying adventure that aims to pull at the heartstrings of parents while keeping the kids quiet for at least ninety minutes.
Review by Ben Dover
I sat down to watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 the other night because my cable went out and this was the only thing the neighbor’s Wi-Fi would let me stream without buffering every ten seconds. Back in my day, if you wanted to see a dragon, you dropped a heavy book on your toe and hallucinated. Now, these kids have these computer-made monsters that look more realistic than my ex-wife’s personality. The movie starts off with some game called dragon racing which just looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Why can’t these kids just play stickball or sit in a dark room and be quiet like I did?
The main kid, Hiccup, is still whining about “finding himself.” Look, kid, you’re twenty years old. When I was twenty, I had a mortgage and a bad back. I didn’t have time to fly around on a “Night Fury” mapping out the world. And what is with that voice? Jay Baruchel sounds like he’s been breathing in helium through a straw for a decade. He’s supposed to be the chief eventually? I wouldn’t trust that kid to lead a parade to a free buffet, let alone a village of Vikings who look like they eat rocks for breakfast.
Then we get the big “twist.” He finds his mother, Valka, played by Cate Blanchett. She’s been living in a giant ice cube for twenty years because she liked dragons more than her own family. Typical. She’s got all these fancy moves and knows all the dragon secrets, but she couldn’t send a postcard? Gerard Butler is back as the dad, Stoick, and he’s still shouting everything like he’s trying to order a pizza from three towns away. He’s the only one in the movie who actually looks like a Viking, but even he goes soft the second he sees his wife.
The bad guy, Drago Bludvist, is a real piece of work. He’s got a cape made of dragon skin and a bad attitude. He wants to control all the dragons because he’s got “willpower” or something. He brings along a “Bewilderbeast” which is basically a skyscraper with tusks that spits ice. It’s a lot of noise and a lot of flashing lights. By the end, there’s a giant battle that made my head hurt. They killed off a major character too, which seems a bit dark for a movie meant to sell plastic toys, but I guess it saves on the voice acting budget for the third one.
Stars: 3.5 out of 5 > “It’s better than the first one if you like crying over cartoons, but the main kid still needs a haircut and a real job.”
The Stars
- Jay Baruchel (Hiccup): The voice of a nervous squirrel in the body of a Viking.
- Gerard Butler (Stoick the Vast): Proving that screaming is a legitimate acting technique.
- Cate Blanchett (Valka): The mother of the year award goes to someone else, clearly.
- Djimon Hounsou (Drago Bludvist): A man who clearly never learned how to play well with others.
- America Ferrera (Astrid): The only person in this movie who actually seems to have her head on straight.
- Kit Harington (Eret): Some guy who looks like he wandered off the set of that dragon show on HBO.
Special Effects
The computers did a lot of work here. The flying scenes actually made me a little dizzy, which I haven’t felt since I tried to stand up too fast at the VFW last Tuesday. The “Bewilderbeast” breathing ice was impressive, I’ll give them that. Everything looks very textured. You can see the nose hairs on the Vikings and the scales on the lizards. It’s almost too much detail. I don’t need to see that much of Gerard Butler’s beard.
Music
The music is loud. It’s got a lot of fiddles and drums that make you feel like you’re supposed to be doing something important, like conquering a hill or at least getting off the couch. John Powell wrote it, and it sounds exactly like the first one but with more “oomph.” There’s also a song where the mom and dad dance that was actually kind of nice, even if it went on a bit long.
Complete Synopsis and Plot Breakdown
The story kicks off five years after the first movie. Berk is a dragon paradise. Hiccup and Toothless spend their time flying around and finding new lands because apparently, the village doesn’t have enough problems. They run into some dragon trappers led by a guy named Eret who says a crazy warlord named Drago Bludvist is building a dragon army. Stoick gets scared and tells everyone to lock up the village, but Hiccup, being a stubborn youth, flies off to try and talk sense into Drago.
Instead of Drago, Hiccup gets snatched up by a mysterious dragon rider who turns out to be his long-lost mother, Valka. She’s been living in a secret dragon sanctuary protected by a massive “Alpha” dragon called a Bewilderbeast. Stoick finds them, they have a messy reunion, and for about five minutes, everything is happy. Then Drago shows up with his own evil Alpha dragon. A giant fight breaks out and Drago’s Alpha kills Valka’s Alpha, becoming the new boss of all dragons.
Drago’s Alpha takes control of Toothless’s mind and orders him to kill Hiccup. Stoick jumps in the way and takes the hit, dying instantly. It was a bit of a shock, honestly. I almost dropped my remote. Hiccup gets mad, pushes Toothless away, and Drago heads for Berk to take over. Hiccup eventually realizes it wasn’t Toothless’s fault and goes back to Berk on a baby dragon (because they don’t listen to the Alpha, kind of like my grandkids don’t listen to me).
In the final showdown, Hiccup manages to snap Toothless out of it. Toothless gets all “glowy” and challenges the big Alpha, winning back the loyalty of the other dragons. They blast the big ice dragon into the ocean, Drago disappears, and Hiccup becomes the new Chief of Berk. Everyone cheers, they have a funeral for Stoick, and the movie ends with Hiccup basically saying, “Yeah, we’re Vikings, deal with it.”
5 Famous Quotes
- “This is Berk. The best kept secret this side of, well, anywhere.”
- “Men who kill without reason cannot be reasoned with.”
- “You’re as beautiful as the day I lost you.”
- “Good dragons under the control of bad people do bad things.”
- “A chief protects his own.”
5 Interesting Notes
- The animators actually traveled to Norway to get the scenery right, which sounds like a fancy excuse for a vacation on the studio’s dime.
- Cate Blanchett only took the role because her kids liked the first movie. Must be nice to pick your jobs based on what a ten-year-old thinks.
- The movie features over 100 different types of dragons, which is about 99 too many to keep track of.
- They used new software for this movie that allowed them to animate more “realistically,” which just means the characters’ skin moves more than mine does.
- It was the first DreamWorks movie to win a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature, not that those trophies mean anything to anyone with a lick of sense.
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