How to Train Your Dragon 2

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Perhaps a bit better than first film with good villain and visuals but dodgy screenplay.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I loved the first movie, so I was excited to see what they could do with a sequel (especially when Dreamworks has been so well w/ sequels, with the 2nd Kung Fu Panda movie and the 3rd Madagascar being the best in their respective series). So I went to see this movie with a few friends, and none of us liked it. And personally, I normally like movies that everyone else hates, not the other way around- well, with the exception of maybe Frozen, but many people, I see now, agree with me that it wasn't that good. I mean, personally I though the pacing was awful (which was also a problem I had w/ Frozen) - I thought the mother's reveal, the villain's reveal, and even the central conflict were shown to quickly. And the villain was the worst I've seen since, well, Hans from Frozen. Actually, this was probably worse because he looked so evil and mad, but also a genius, and he looked that way, but his dialogue was very bland and kind of stupid, and his intentions were stupid and overused (seriously? Why did they have to add the world-domination part?!) and he just didn't seem...evil enough. And I really didn't like Hiccup's mom. I guess there was something about her personality that I didn't like, but I didn't like her inclusion in the movie. Her being dead in the first movie created tragedy for Hiccup and Stoik (since Hiccup had noone to support him when his dad looked down upon him, and Stoik was a single parent trying to take care of his people, but also be a good father), and gave Stoik a good reason for hating dragons. And the fact that she wanted peace between dragons and humans made it kind of Hiccup's 'destiny' to be like that, which takes away from the first movie, where HE was the first viking who wouldn't kill a dragon. Now, if it turned out that she was taken away and, over time grew to love dragons, that would be a different thing. Then there was the handsome british guy. His character could have been pretty good- a guy who was on the bad side but turned good? That's what made Prince Zuko such an awesome character! But he changed sides a bit too fast (going back to the pacing)- maybe if they Riders saved him, but he betrayed them, but after thinking about what is good and what isn't, then he changed his mind, that would have made me like his character more (and then, when Hiccup gave him a-certain-person's dragon, he would have earned that honor a bit more). But his character also caused for some wanna-be-funny moments from Ruffnut...I know they're teens, so jokes about a girl liking a hot guy a are pretty much inevitable, but noone in the theater I went to laughed at the scenes where she's pretty much drooling for the guy (well, maybe except for when she falls in love w/ Snottlout and Fishlegs). There were also a few little things that pissed me off, like Hiccup being shown as adventurous at the beginning, but everyone forgets about that. And when we found out about Stoik wanting to make Hiccup chief, it's through this odd...fake conversation between Astrid and Hiccup, which could have been cute if it wasn't for Astrid using her hands like Hiccup does and him asking when he's ever done that- jokes like that almost always feel forced imo. In fact, a lot of the jokes in this movie feel forced. And I thought the scene where Stoik and Hiccup's mom were singing could have been quite emotional, it was pretty awkward (especially w/ Gobber talking in the middle). And I'll probably be the first to say it, but I think Dragon Racing is really not fun to watch- it's like they wanted to make a cool-looking sport like Quidditch, but to make it with the least effort possible- by both creativity of the writers, and the skill required by the players. Even though I didn't like the movie, I did think there were some good points about it: I thought Toothless, especially w/ his interactions w/ other dragons, was pretty cute and funny, but he was also a total badass in fights, and hi struggling to not follow the Alpha Dragon was pretty awesome. In fact, all the battles were awesome (though not as much as in the first movie), and while the shots of the flying got old from the first movie, they still look beautiful- especially in 3D. And (spoiler alert) Stoik's death scene was pretty heartbreaking, especially knowing that he had been trying so hard to be good and had wanted to see his son become chief and just wanted to come home as a happy family- I swear, his death almost made me cry as much as Mufasa's, not to mention it was done by Toothless (though he was under control by the villain, which is btw the only moment when I really thought that he was an evil madman). Of course, his death was ruined when the scene right after his death, there was a scene where everyone is being goofy while struggling to fly on the baby dragons, but it was still quite a heart tugging moment while it lasted.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]