Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon - The Hidden World

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: The main characters; series wraps up well

Cons: Pacing; most of the supporting characters

The Bottom Line:

Viking and dragons

One final adventure film

Wraps up series well

Satisfying Concluding Chapter to the Trilogy

I must admit I am not the biggest fan of the How to Train Your Dragon series.  Yet, when I got the impression that this newest one, subtitled The Hidden World, would be the final film, I was curious enough to go see how they would end it.  Turns out, I’m very glad I did.

The village of Berk, under the leadership of Chief Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), has become not only a kingdom where dragons and Vikings live side by side, but also a force for free dragons.  However, their work hasn’t gone unnoticed, and some of the people who have made their living capturing dragons aren’t happy about it.  They approach Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), a renown dragon hunter, to stop Hiccup once and for all.

For his part, Hiccup decides that, for the safety of his people, they need to find the legendary Hidden World, a place where dragons live in safety.  His plan is to relocate not only their dragons but his entire village there.  Complicating matters is the discovery that his dragon, Toothless, isn’t the only Night Furry left.  And the other one is female.  As she and Toothless fall in love, how will that complicate everything?

My complaints with the series are in full display here.  I found the pacing uneven, especially the part that focuses on Toothless falling in love.  Yes, parts of that were funny, but on the whole, I felt it lasted a bit too long.  Other things could have been shortened up a little as well.  Still, it mostly kept my interest as the tale unfolded.

All the characters are back (well, a prominent one is back in flashbacks), which is both good and bad.  While I love Hiccup and Astrid, his love interest voiced by America Ferrera, some of the rest can be annoying.  Oh, I get that they are supposed to be funny, but I find them more annoying than funny.  It doesn’t help that there are so many supporting characters that we still don’t really get to know the others.  Hiccup and Astrid have some great scenes together, however, that remind me why I love these two characters.

The other amazing friendship in the film is between Hiccup and Toothless.  Toothless doesn’t say a word, but the love these two have for each other comes through every second they are on screen together.  While the other characters also obviously care of their dragons, these two are much of the heart of the franchise.

While I kind of saw where the film was going, it didn’t diminish the impact of the last 15 minutes.  Things wrap up so perfectly.  If you love these characters, you’ll really find the final few scenes impactful.  I did, and I’m not a super big fan of the franchise.

While the characters are still stylized animation, some of the settings are jaw dropping.  Animation can look so amazing these days.  The voice cast continues to do a good job bringing these characters to life for us.

The way the film wraps things up is enough to make me recommend How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World to fans of the franchise.  If you don’t like the series, you can skip this one, however.