Hiccup and Toothless faces another fearsome foe that would challenge their unwavering bond while on a journey to find the hidden world.
For an animated franchise with no Disney and/or Pixar Studios engraved under its belt,
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World proves that it is capable if not as strong as when it first flapped its wings back in 2010. From a movie standpoint,
Hidden World's dragonpower can still go toe-to-toe against other popular animation blockbusters, such as
Wreck-it-Ralph,
The Incredibles or even
Toy Story, when it comes to modern appeal, visual presentation, charming characters and artistic pizzazz. Much like its previous films,
Hidden World offers the same vigor and comical relationship between our esteemed heroes, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), now a young Chieftain of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe, aka the Berkians, and his adorable dragon pet, Toothless.
The movie opens up with our characters on a mission to rescue dragons who were in captivity from a dragon-trapper ship. Hiccup and the rest of the gang was sporting a dragon-inspired armor that is both aesthetically amusing and functionally practical for combat and mobility. This very sequence introduced us to a mysterious new dragon known as the Light Fury, a female kind with scales as white as a pearl and has the physiology akin to that of Toothless. Sometime later, a new tactical and conniving hunter, Grimmle the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham) has entered the scene, posing a threat to the dragonkind for a motive that was reasonable and yet somewhat generic. Other actors lending their voices once again are Cate Blanchett as Valka, America Ferrera as Astrid and Gerard Butler as Stoick among others.
Looking at the bigger picture, the story itself is not something that hasn't been done before nor has been extensively presented in an animated fashion for the first time. However, don't fret as it was executed beautifully and writer-director David DeBlois did his best to distinguish the movie apart from a plethora of films operating on the same tale. If anything, this movie is a testament that no film could go wrong with a tired plot as long it's done right. To be fair, DeBlois' How to Train Your Dragon trilogy is not known for its elaborate and hard-wired narrative. Rather, what DeBlois' goal was to captivate the audience with his heartfelt storytelling complemented by a stunning animation and intricate artistic design choices that pops on the silver screen. If it isn't obvious, the film itself was more of a joyous experience that warms the heart rather than a superfluous finality to a franchise.
An affable addition to the film's merits was its interesting dynamic between Toothless and our newfound dragon, the Light Fury. In a compelling way, DeBlois invested a chunky amount of time to show their interpretation of a bird-mating ritual, like a science television documentary, through Toothless and the Light Fury's one-on-one dance courtship that provided an entertaining comic relief on top of a mildly educational element. The film was also generous with loads of aerial shots through the Berkian's perspective, riding their respective dragons, while navigating the blissful skies of its self-contained world.
More often than not, the film's overall structure doesn't feel like a third film. Comparatively, DeBlois second chapter in this decade-long franchise had better plot, better weight in terms of theme and generally speaking, was more emotionally-induced than this 2019 conclusion. With that said, the movie didn't took its story much to a whole new level, but rather reuses what worked in the past and honed those elements using modern-day technology. Needless to say, DeBlois' strategy was to focus more on eye-popping tokens rather than an original narrative which still flatters and ecstasizes.
Let's Be Reel
Limited by a familiar plot, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is an entertaining visual marvel. Its appeal was bounded by its detailed art design and gorgeous-looking animation that places itself on par, if not better, with Disney and Pixar's animated flicks. As for the story, there isn't much to discuss but what's important is how they delivered and executed the material that they have. A must-watch.
8.5/10
Reel Points
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