Yes, I know it’s Dreamwork’s, but can we just call this our Pixar movie for the year?
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“How to Train Your Dragon 2” is Dreamwork’s follow up the hugely successful original from 2010. It brings back all of the characters, voices, and, of course, dragons from the first and adds a few more of each to round out the mix. Lets be honest, it would be quite a task for these filmmakers to figure out a way to surpass the incredible action, humor, emotion, and breath taking flying sequences so many loved from the first, but I think they just might have done it.
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How To Train Your Dragon 2 is a transcendent film. Like the first, it’s one of those movies you just melt into and lose yourself in the ride, allowing the storyteller to seamlessly take you along an adrenaline filled, humorful, and deeply emotional journey. Which is pretty incredible considering the level of difficulty sequels natural entail. In my opinion, one of the best decisions the writers made was to have allowed some time to pass between stories. Not only does this allow for us to get to know how our characters have grown and changed, but it gives the sense that as time was passing in our world it was in theirs as well, allowing us an even deeper sense of buy in. And man that buy in pays off in some major emotional turns, allowing a depth and resonance you just don’t often see in animated films made outside the Lasseter dynasty. The result though is that the film amidst it’s adventure and fun is able to say powerful and meaningful things about sacrifice, redemption, love, and most of all what it means to lead. Speaking of adventure and fun, I haven’t spent nearly enough time yet shouting about how much of a blast watching this movie is. The action is intense, the animation is stunningly beautiful, and, man, the flight scenes, are a type of filmic euphoria that is hard to explain. They continue to be the best thing about the franchise. To be honest, I was concerned that so much of this stuff would be old hat, after watching the original so many times. (Note to future parents, make sure when you buy your kids a movie, it’s a movie you don’t mind hearing on repeat for at least the next month or two) But the truth is these animators continue to amaze with stunning new looks at what it would be like to actually be a dragon rider. I’ll put this way, these scenes made me so giddy I giggled. Yup, a 6 ft 6 ogre of a man just giggling away in the middle of the theater. You happy now, Dreamworks?
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So you want a worst thing? Well, I tried to think of one, but everything thing I thought of seemed to be a stretch. Sure there was this one joke that didn’t land for me, and I remember at one point wondering if they were adding too many characters. But the character’s all worked and it seems silly to dock a movie points for a singular joke when 99% of the humor is great. So how bout this? The worst thing is that I felt like the trailer gave away story points I would have rather experienced first hand while watching the movie. Seriously marketing teams, stop this, It’s possible to make a trailer to interest people without showing so much of your hand, I promise. Not that any of that is the fault of the movie, but still it’s annoying, and I kind of have this best thing, worst thing going on so there you go.
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Overall, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is an extremely powerful, meaningful, and beautiful film. It’s an epic journey with new discoveries, humor, and adventure throughout, making for a ride worth repeating every chance you get. It rockets straight up through the clouds to an elusive A+
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Thanks for checking out this Your Movie Friend review, stay tuned for this review’s “Best Ever” challenge here in bit but first, I’m going to put up some stuff you can click over in this area. If you’d like to subscribe, which I would much appreciate, you can do so by clicking the big gray subscribe button. Want to see more? I also have reviews of 22 Jump Street and Alone Yet Not Alone this week. You can also Click the logo up here to go to the all new yourmoviefriend.com where you can find a searchable database of reviews as well as the written text of these videos. And finally this review’s “Best Ever” Challenge, where you name the best movie ever in a particular category and also try to identify my choice. What is the “the best movie ever where someone loses a limb”. The choice might seem obvious from a certain sci fi sequel, but I’m going with one from an animated sequel. Drop your own answer and a guess at mine in the comments and first person to guess mine gets a point! Thanks and please subscribe!