Movie Review

Hiccup and his dad are not quite on the same page. Again.

Stoick, head of the Isle of Berk's proud, dragon-despising-turned-dragon-embracing Viking

clan, is ready to make his son the new chief. But Hiccup's not sure it's an honor he wants. So
he spends his days avoiding the leadership dilemma in front of him by mapping the outer
reaches of civilization, looking for new lands and new dragons, cataloging everything he
discovers.

Hiccup and his night fury dragon, Toothless, along with Hiccup's more-than-just-a-friend
Astrid, do indeed find some new dragons … as well as the cruel men hunting them. And just
like that, Hiccup's smack in the middle of a brewing war.

Hiccup and Co. are captured by ace dragon trapper Eret. But as haughty as Eret is, his
wannabe villainy is nothing compared to the man he captures dragons for: Drago Bloodfist,
the self-proclaimed Dragon Master, a cruel tyrant assembling an army of the flying beasts to
subjugate the entire world. The biggest of them, called an alpha (think Godzilla!), keeps all
the other captured dragons under his hypnotic thrall.

Clearly, intrepid Hiccup must do something.

Between escapes and recaptures and more escapes, Hiccup stumbles into the hidden lair of
yet another dragon master, someone with a big alpha dragon of her own—as well as a
significant connection to Hiccup's past.

You know what's coming next: the biggest dragon knock-down, drag-out you ever did see.

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Positive Elements
[Spoilers are contained in this section.]

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is about Hiccup embracing his destiny as the young man who
would lead Berk. But even more than that, it's a story about family—how it molds our sense
of identity and character.

Hiccup couldn't be more different than his father, Stoick, a massive boulder of a man.
Waiflike Hiccup's always feared he could never live up to Dad's larger-than-life leadership
style. So he's hesitant to embrace his father's call to take over the tribe.

Early on, Stoick responds by trying harder to impart leadership values to Hiccup. "A chief
protects his own," Stoick instructs. "No task is too small when it comes to serving your
people." It's good stuff.

Things get interesting, however, when Mom shows up. Valka, the woman everyone saw
carried away by a dragon 20 years earlier, has been presumed dead. Instead, she took up
residence in a paradisiacal enclave of dragons, communicating with them, living with them
and caring for those wounded by Drago's men.

Hiccup justifiably wonders why she never returned. The answer is complicated: She'd come
to love dragons, and she didn't think her husband could ever change, that he could ever be
anything but a dragon slayer. She also wanted "to change the world for all dragons, to make it
a better, safer place" she says. When Stoick shows up and is stunned to find his wife still
alive, the two work their way toward a poignant, passionate reunion (which includes a tender,
beautiful reenactment of the song they sang to each other at the time of their engagement).
Then the reconnected family valiantly leads the charge against Drago and his spellbound
dragon army.

"Good dragons under the control of bad people do bad things," Valka intones.

Valcka fully realizes now that she should have given Stoick another chance before writing
him off as someone who was unable to change. And she apologizes to her son for abandoning
him: "I'm so sorry, Hiccup. Can we start over? Can you give me another chance?"

Sadly, the family reunion proves to be painfully short-lived, as Stoick sacrificially steps in
front of a dragon's fire blast to save someone. At his funeral, Valka says that Stoick always
believed his son would be a great leader. She tells Hiccup, "I feared you wouldn't make it, but
your father never doubted." Hiccup replies, "I was so afraid of becoming my dad, mostly
because I thought I could never become someone so great, so brave, so selfless." In the end
he concludes, "I guess all you can do is try."

Stoick willingly makes that ultimate sacrifice. But Hiccup, Astrid, Toothless and nearly every
other good character in this story also lay everything on the line to defend Berk and defeat
Drago. Even Valka, who affirms, "The world wants peace … the voice of peace, bit by bit,
will change this world," knows that sometimes you must fight for that peace and the freedom
that comes with it.

Speaking of Drago, Hiccup is convinced he can show the dastardly villain the error of his
ways. Hiccup may be naive, but he can be praised for wanting to give it his best shot. Stoick's
wisdom is equally laudable when he says, "Men who kill without reason can't be reasoned
with."

Spiritual Content
A funeral references Valhalla, found in the Norse mythological city of Asgard. We hear this
blessing: "May the Valkyries welcome you and lead you through Odin's battlefield."
Someone exclaims "Gods help us all." We also hear "Oh my gods."

One woman with a special connection to dragons is shown wearing a tribal mask and acting
like a kind of shaman in her ability to influence the great beasts. She herself couches her
connection in spiritual terms, saying that a dragon is "not a vicious beast, but an intelligent,
gentle creature whose soul reflects my own."

Sexual Content
Astrid kisses Hiccup twice, once on the cheek, once on the lips. (During the second smooch,
Gobber covers the eyes of a watching child.) A married couple embraces and kisses.

The young female Ruffnut is lustily infatuated with Eret. Slow-motion scenes find her leering
at him as he flexes his significant muscles; she exclaims suggestive things like "Take me!"
"Oh my!" "Ooh, I like that!" and "Me likey!" Meanwhile, two of Berk's other Vikings vie for
her attention.

Amid a heated discussion between a married couple, the onlooking Gobber blurts out, "This
is why I never married. This and one other reason." Though the latter phrase could refer to
many different thing that have kept Gobber from getting hitched, director Dean DeBlois has
said it's a nod to Gobber being gay. (More on this in the review's postscript.)

Violent Content
Violence gets ratcheted up several levels compared to the original film.

Drago's dragons and men launch a siege-like offensive against a dragon sanctuary.
Combatants fly wildly about in this sequence, launching all manner of attacks which often
culminate in fire and explosions. We don't see many casualties from this combat, but there
are exceptions. One character takes a dragon's energy ball blast at point-blank range and is
killed. A behemoth alpha dragon is felled by a similarly monstrous beast. Another dragon
battle knocks a giant horn off the evil alpha dragon's face.

People repeatedly fall off dragons (and are generally caught or land in water), get blasted by
dragon fire and dragon ice (sometimes being encased in the latter), and suffer crash landings,
almost always with no lasting ill effect. Several people are dangled in midair by dragons in a
threatening manner.

For all of the film's rough-and-tumble playfulness (sheep are routinely catapulted high into
the air just for fun, for instance, and one Viking boy talks about being buried alive by a girl
who apparently did not reciprocate his crush), Drago is a deadly serious enemy. He has no
problem ordering someone's execution, and his eventual all-out assault on a defenseless and
dragonless Berk is harrowing. Drago's pirate-like minions have no remorse about making
people walk the plank to their doom (a fate that's narrowly avoided).

Human-on-human violence includes several hand-to-hand melees. Dragon trappers are

relentless in their pursuit, and they use elaborate gun-fired nets to ensnare their prey. We see
Drago remove his prosthetic arm, revealing a shoulder stump from a terrible dragon wound
he sustained as a child. And we see the red scars on Eret's chest after it was carved up by
Drago as a punishment.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear an unfinished "What the …?" Hiccup yells out that they're going to "kick Drago's ..."
Name-calling includes "moron." Given names include Barf and Belch and Snotlout.

Drug and Alcohol Content

None.

Other Negative Elements

While trying to redeem someone is a good thing, Hiccup foolishly heads into harm's way
when he disregards his father's counsel about reforming Drago's crooked heart.

Potty humor includes "soil my britches" and "steaming heap of dragon—duck!" Dragons
sniff backsides and regurgitate partially digested fish for others to eat.

Conclusion
Sequels in a beloved franchise tend to take all the things that made the first film a hit and
Make Them Bigger. We might label this phenomenon Sequelitis, or maybe Sequelization
Syndrome. And that's definitely the case here. There are more dragons, more pyrotechnics,
more characters, more intensity, more at stake.

Parents wondering if the sequel is as suitable for young viewers as the original might want to
take note of all those mores—while remembering that it's a swath of dragon fire that can burn
both ways.

There's also more heroism, for instance. And the story's poignant focus on the power of a
father and mother's influence is deeply compelling—as is their marital reconciliation and
rekindled love for each other. It's the kind of pro-family storytelling that inspires you to want
to be a better, more helpful, more loving member of your own family. Hiccup isn't left to just
follow his dreams, rather he learns about responsibility and leadership, as well as the work
required to see things through.

But it's the battle scenes that will feel more more than the rest of those mores. Dragons and
humans die in intense skirmishes that I found myself mentally comparing to the likes
of Godzilla and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Things never get that grim or
gory, of course, but the combat is rarely merely cartoony. A few worship-minded references
are made to the Norse gods, as well, and wickedness feels palpable in the dark Drago.

All of that makes this a film several degrees more complex in its portrayal of human (and
dragon) goodness … as well as in giving us a shadowy glimpse of the opposite. So while
How to Train Your Dragon 2 is every bit as entertaining and engaging as its predecessor, it's
traded some of the whimsical, childlike wonder for a more nuanced—and at times darker—
examination of the clash between good and evil.

A postscript: None of the advance buzz related to How to Train Your Dragon 2 was about the
battles. Instead, it flitted around a single line of dialogue that the film's director indicated was
an admission that one of Berk's residents was gay.

After the film's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Dean DeBlois said the "revelation" was
an ad lib by voice actor (and late night TV personality) Craig Ferguson: "When we were
recording Craig Ferguson, I had written the line, 'This is why I never got married,' and he, as
he often does, added it as an ad lib, and he said, 'Yup, Gobber is coming out of the closet.' I
think that's a really fun [and] daring move to put in. I love the idea that Gobber is Berk's
resident gay."

In a separate interview with Fox News, DeBlois added, "And we all started chuckling and
said, That's right, Gobber's coming out in this movie. I just love that about Craig. He's always
got just a little extra something for you. I think it's nice. It's progressive, it's honest, and it
feels good, so we wanted to keep it."

As noted in this review's "Sexual Content" section, the full line that ended up in the movie's
final print is, "This is why I never married. This and one other reason." So it's a statement that
likely never would have evoked any sort of discussion about sexuality had DeBlois not said
anything about it.

Remarked star Jay Baruchel, who voices Hiccup, "Preaching tolerance in any respect is never
a bad thing. I don't know if drawing a massive amount of attention in the middle of a kids'
movie is, like, necessarily what you should be doing, but listen, if somebody catches it, then
good for them."

And what if families don't catch it and aren't forced to confront this very adult issue in the
middle of a kids' movie? (Which many certainly will not.) Well, DeBlois has already hinted
that these themes may get explored more in the franchise's next installment. "It does make for
an interesting revelation because now, what does that mean," he said, "do we shed a little
more light on Gobber's love life?"

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a 2014 American 3D computer-animated fantasy-action film

produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox, loosely based on
the British book series of the same name by Cressida Cowell. It is the sequel to the 2010
computer-animated film How to Train Your Dragon and the second in the trilogy. The film is
written and directed by Dean DeBlois, and stars the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler,
Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller and
Kristen Wiig with the addition of Cate Blanchett, Djimon Hounsou and Kit Harington. The
film takes place five years after the first film, featuring Hiccup and his friends as young
adults as they meet Valka, Hiccup's long-lost mother, and Drago Bludvist, a madman who
wants to conquer the world.[4]

DeBlois, who co-directed the first film, agreed to return to direct the second film on the
condition that he would be allowed to turn it into a trilogy. He cited The Empire Strikes Back
and My Neighbor Totoro as his main inspirations, with the expanded scope of the The Empire
Strikes Back being particularly influential. The entire voice cast from the first film returned,
and Cate Blanchett and Djimon Hounsou signed on to voice Valka and Drago, respectively.
DeBlois and his creative team visited Norway and Svalbard to give them ideas for the setting.
Composer John Powell returned to score the film. How to Train Your Dragon 2 benefited
from advances in animation technology and was DreamWorks' first film to use scalable
multi-core processing and the studio's new animation and lighting software.

The film was released in the United States on June 13, 2014, and like its predecessor,
received wide acclaim. Critics praised the film for its animation, voice acting, action scenes,
emotional depth, and darker, more serious tone compared to its predecessor. The film grossed
over $621 million worldwide, making it the twelfth highest-grossing film of 2014. It earned
less than its predecessor at the US box office, but performed better internationally.[5] The
third installment in the trilogy, titled How to Train Your Dragon 3, is scheduled to be
released on June 29, 2018.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 received the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature
Film and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The film won
six Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature and Best Director.