Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon 2

I absolutely adored the first How to Train Your Dragon movie.  What a fun concept and it was executed so well.  I was so excited when I was sitting in a theater watching another movie and a preview came on with Toothless flying through the air and a boy riding his back. When he took off his mask and a grown up Hiccup was there, I almost jumped for joy!  I went in to How to Train Your Dragon 2 with pretty high expectations – but also not knowing much about what the plot was other than that his mom showed up.

Well, I can honestly say that I loved the second movie also.  It’s roughly 5 years later – so Hiccup is now a 20 year old man.  Life has changed in Birk; Dragons are accepted and weapons places have changed to making saddles for the dragons, etc.  It was fun to see the change that Hiccup was able to bring about, and also see the relationship between Hiccup and his father.  Also, Hiccup and Astrid are absolutely adorable. The movie doesn’t focus on the romance at all; it’s just there in the background which I really liked.

This movie focuses on whether Hiccup is ready to take over in his father’s place as chief. Does he even want it? Is he ready? All sorts of shenanigans happen while he tries to prove that he can bring peace by talking.  In the midst of it, everyone ends up captured at some point and Hiccup ends up running in to his mother – the mother that everyone thought was dead (I’m not spoiling anything because it was in the preview!!!).  I really loved learning her story and what happened to her.  And watching a relationship with Hiccup form was really special. 

There was a heart wrenching moment in the movie that I was not expecting. Am I mad? No, I don’t think so – I think it almost needed to happen. Does that mean I’m happy about it? No!  But it added a lot of depth and emotion to the movie.

This movie also introduced us to a new character that was fairly interesting. It was fun to watch him transform.  And the light hearted crushes that everyone has are hilarious.

The movie ends really well. For the most part it’s a happy ending.  I thought they did a great job on it. I still absolutely love Toothless and Hiccup.  And adding Astrid in there is a bonus. I didn’t watch the TV show before seeing this movie, and I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. The only thing is that when he whipped out his map of the world, it was the first time I’d seen it – but I understand that the TV show focuses on him traveling the world with Toothless and finding new lands.  So I think that part would have just been homage to the TV show – but you don’t have to have seen it to know what’s going on.

If you enjoyed the first one, I know you’ll enjoy the second movie.  If you haven’t watched either yet, I highly recommend you do.  My next step? To find the books that the movies are based on!