Reviews WesternAnimation / How To Train Your Dragon 2

Actually Pretty Great *There will be spoilers*

How to Train Your Dragon 2 takes place after Hiccup taught his people to live with the dragons, and now the Vikings and the dragons live in peace.

Everything seems stable, and Stoick, Hiccup's father, now see that his son has grown and wants to make him chief. Except Hiccup isn't sure if he wants to take that role yet, feeling that "something" and he has to look for it by traveling across the lands.

While Hiccups that he might have found niche, which is training dragons, he still isn't sure of his role in the tribe. He even mentions how he didn't meet his mother, and how because of that he doesn't know himself yet (Freud would have fun with this kid).

The thing about this movie is that its predictable. Start up, we can already tell where this movie is going. Even Astrid says that Hiccup already has everything he need inside himself and not out there. The rest of the movie is just reconfirming that fact.

And that's great. Because this doesn't need to be some ridiculous complex story. Its simplicity works for it, and is its greatest strength. Hiccup meets his mother, and realize that he's on the right path. That like his mother, he is empathic and good in dealing with dragons, and like his father he will be a good chief. Then Stoick reunites with Valka and you can see only love between the two and acceptance from Stoick, there is no anger from him, just sheer astonishment and happiness that his wife is alive. Everyone acts in character, even the comic reliefs.

And as for Hiccup's friends being captured by Drago, it felt annoying but not out of character for them. They can be impulsive but they are well meaning. Drago is someone consumed by revenge and the desire to conquer everyone, easy and simple to understand. He's the opposite of Hiccup from HTTYD 1, and a possibility of what Hiccup could have become when Stoick died.

Toothless's power up is a bit out of nowhere, but not that unexpected. In the first movie, he defied the Alpha with Hiccup to save the dragons, and now he defied Drago's Alpha and powered up to protect his best friend. Even Valka foreshadows that dragons have many secrets.

The one problem this movie does have is the timing of Drago's attack on the dragon sanctuary. It shouldn't have been that easy for him to find it. Other than that, I loved watching this story.