How To Train Your Dragon 2 Takes Animation to New Heights

"Dragons and Vikings…enemies again"

Do NOT read this review if you have not yet seen the movie. The term "spoilers" does not even begin to cover it. If you haven't seen it yet, what the hell are you waiting for? Go. Now.

As I was walking into the cinema to see "The Empire Strikes Back," some teens in the car park, leaving the previous show, shouted, "Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father!" and sped off before they could get the beating they so richly deserved. That was over 30 years ago; I was a small child then, but I had much the same feeling when the trailers for HTTYD2 revealed that Valka is Hiccup's mother. I realize that every promotional decision is finely calculated to increase revenue, but I cannot fathom the marketing strategy there. It may not be a third act reveal but it is a sequence rich with tension and mystery. Imagine seeing that bizarrely costumed figure rising through the clouds seemingly unsupported, as Hiccup fumes about his father, and not knowing who it is. (It is one of the film's innumerable perfect touches that Hiccup initially assumes it is his father.) Is this Drago? We might wonder, as Hiccup does, if this is the introduction of our antagonist. Is it even human? Considerable screen time is devoted to waiting for the alien figure to even acknowledge that it understands human speech. And we would certainly be frantic about Toothless's fate if we did not know the stranger's disposition. With that build-up, and no prior knowledge, our eyes would grow as wide as Hiccup's when Valka drops the bombshell. The reveal is clearly designed to be as major a shock to the viewer as it is to him; instead, we are forced into the dramatic irony of waiting for the character to learn what we already know. I could spit plasma.

Before I continue, I have a confession to make: I have yet to see the first movie in an actual cinema. Forget 3D, I just wish I had seen it on the big screen. The death-defying, cheat sheet-flapping test drive, Astrid's first flight through the clouds, surrounded by the Aurora Borealis—how these must exhilarate even more on a proper sized screen! (Yes, it seems surprising that I only saw HTTYD after it came out on DVD but, in my defense, I hadn't a clue then what a life-and-career altering event it would be.) So, I hoped that a local cinema might offer a double feature, as many of them do when sequels are released, but no luck.

In parallel with HTTYD, HTTYD2 bestows two showpiece flight sequences. The first acquaints us with the progress of Hiccup's and Toothless's flying prowess and the second is a vehicle for some bonding time with mum, as the comparable flight sequence in the first film had facilitated bonding with Astrid.

No-one would accuse me of being an adrenaline junkie (deadlines don't count, ahem) but the combined effect of the music and the animation in the opening flight is irresistible. The cinematography is staggeringly evocative. You are not merely watching; you, too, are soaring through the sky, the ocean sparkling below. This is what it means to be alive; up here with the clouds, this is living. It is crucial that you experience this viscerally because in the next scene Hiccup explains that he doesn't want to give up his freedom for the duties of chiefing. Instead of thinking him feckless, you empathize.

The cinematography never lets you down: from the eye of baby Hiccup in the flashback dissolving into his adult eye to the prow of Stoick's ship emerging from the bottom of the screen, much thought was put into each shot and full advantage was taken of the lack of live action limitations.

Just as much consideration was given to the relationships between the characters. I love that it is completely unambiguous that Hiccup and Astrid are lovers. No wait-until-marriage Disneyesque prudishness here; the casual intimacy of their body language proves they've ridden more than their dragons by now. It is also cleverly revealing how Hiccup reacts to Astrid's unflattering physical mimicry rather than to what she is saying.

As a writer with expertise in dialogue, I am not qualified to comment on the visual effects, so I can only express a layman's awe at the photorealism. The surfacing has reached a level of proficiency and attention to detail that is unrivaled. Fingernails with a hint of dirt under them, and Toothless's eye when he is lying on top of Hiccup during their play fight leap to mind as examples. One of the actors commented in an interview that he thought they had filmed the ocean. My favourite touch is the claw scratches on the dragon perches in the opening rooftop view of Berk.

This attention to detail, DeBlois's gift for storytelling, Powell's transcendent music, and the skills and talents of the cast and crew combine to make this franchise ascend high above its genre. When I ask people if they're planning to see it and they sneer that it's a children's movie, I want to ensnare them with a bola and drag them to the cinema. It's not a great children's film; it's a great film that children can watch. This isn't merely a matter of opinion; the vast difference in quality between HTTYD2 and much of what gets released today in either live action or animation is self-evident. Rarely is this much effort put into a sequel; this is a unique labour of love. The evidence of the filmmakers' care and pride is as moving as the story itself. I credit DeBlois and (on the first film) Sanders with inspiring that kind of devotion from everyone involved. Their attitude struck me when I watched them interviewed for Lilo & Stitch and they explained how they reworked the story for years to get it right, visited locations to get every detail of flora, fauna, and culture correct, and used elements that are often clichéd and caricatured in a respectful way. HTTYD2 is the kind of animated film that can be made when you really care. That's what inspires me and draws me in. Yes, aesthetically it is tailor-made for me, but Brave ticked every boreal Celtophile aesthetic box and it wasn't a life-changing experience. This film works on every level. It is an epic story, it breaks new ground in animation, both technically and thematically, and the constellation of talent combines to achieve a rare synergy in filmmaking.

The few criticisms I have read strike me as misguided. Of course no-one wants Stoick to die but dramatic necessity cried out for it. It doesn't fit with Viking culture, or Stoick's personality, for him to grow grey and creaky, watching Hiccup run the village from a dragon-carved rocking chair. He was only 50 so, in theory, he could have chiefed another decade or two, spent some quality time with Valka, and held his grandchildren. But Hiccup becoming chief at the end with his father in the background would not have had the same dramatic and emotional resonance. It's fitting that Stoick died selflessly in battle. He didn't just save his son; he was protecting all his people by saving their next chief, who is the only Viking equipped to deal with the new challenges that they will face in future.

I knew the entire plot before I saw an early screening (don't ask), and the one question mark I had going in was how DeBlois was going to orchestrate Hiccup's forgiveness of Toothless. The choice to have Toothless kill Stoick struck me initially as totally insane and then, on reflection, as incredibly brave. I hope someday to hear how it developed in his head – did he know Stoick was going to die, and then need a catalyst to deepen Hiccup and Toothless's bond, or was it like the leg in HTTYD, one day someone quipped, "How about Toothless kills him?"

HTTYD2 has also been chastised for not passing the Bechdel test but, again, there were both dramatic and running time constraints. There are only three female characters, and I don't think Ruff would have gotten into any deep conversations with Astrid or Valka given the running time of Götterdämmerung. I am certain that Valka and Astrid will talk Nadders at great length, but there was no scope for including that here.

The last major complaint I've seen leveled unfairly at the film is the accusation that Drago plays to racial stereotypes. Good versus evil has ever been depicted as light versus dark but there are no racial implications behind that dichotomy. Nor is Drago black. He is voiced by a black actor, but appears to be vaguely Slavic. He has dreadlocks but then so does Tuffnut. And, let's be honest, the race his caricatured face most resembles is Muppet.

Am I so besotted with the franchise that I cannot find anything that could have been done better? Hardly. As soon as I can get ahold of the script, I will compose a line-by-line critique. For starters, I love how Gothi is now the Berkian version of a crazy cat lady, but the soot on the forehead was straight out of the Lion King. The filmmakers have charmed us with their daring and originality throughout; there was no excuse to hiccup right at the end.

Suspending disbelief has never been a strongpoint of mine, and a few oversights were hard to let slide. Drago couldn't just hop on Toothless and fly off. As simple and intuitive as Hiccup's engineering genius may have made the tail control mechanism, it would take some practice to master.

The village scene where Stoick is showing Hiccup the ropes is meant in part to highlight the time and work involved in chiefing. It does fulfill that function, but the Viking's request for a fancy dragon saddle makes the chief seem more like Father Christmas than legal arbiter and protector. The village has artisans, a division of labour, and a barter system; the chief would certainly help build houses and provide for basic needs, but fulfilling custom saddle orders seems a bit over the top, even in an era of peace and prosperity. Besides, from Hiccup's perspective, conducting legal business and resolving disputes would be far less to his taste than making a saddle. But, I understand the scene had to convey many things in a short time frame, and needed to make it difficult but not impossible for Hiccup to talk to his father, and we needed to visit Gobber's smithy at some point in this film.

The scene where Cloudjumper regurgitates food for Toothless is adorably disgusting (disgustingly adorable?) and I would never want it cut, but didn't the dragons just gorge on a veritable fountain of fish? But perhaps, like a just-fed dog sniffing around the table for scraps, they are always eager for more. Or maybe they did not just eat – another issue is how the film works temporally. It is already afternoon when Astrid joins Hiccup, but only dawn of the next morning when they arrive at Berk on their baby dragons for the final battle sequence. Having lived in Scandinavia, I know it stays light very late in the summer but it still seems like there were too many hours in that day.

Some of my quibbles are, admittedly, unfair: The film feels to me like it flies by (no pun intended). My thirst for this world and its characters is unquenchable and I don't want the adventure to end, ever. You could show them brushing their teeth or cleaning out the dragon stables and I would be riveted. But I concede that 92 minutes is standard for a film whose target demographic is children and their parents. I wish it were a Wagnerian length but that would have been a hard sell for the director.

I longed for more interaction between Hiccup and Astrid but I concede that it would not serve dramatic purpose here. The security of their relationship forms a critical part of the foundation on top of which the drama plays out. In order for it to feature more prominently, there would have to have been conflict. But including conflict in their relationship in addition to everything else Hiccup is facing would have been emotionally insupportable and structurally awkward. Astrid knows that Hiccup is fully capable of being chief even though he doesn't believe it himself yet; she is needed as second-in-command to move the plot forward with Eret and Drago, and because the dramatic focus is on Hiccup's coming-of-age. I can't fault that objectively; I simply wish for more personally. Have you ever seen two animated characters with better chemistry? No, you haven't.

Now go see it again.

Why Stoick Had To Die

Before I explain, here's a little scene we will never see due to Stoick's death:

"Fishlegs!" Hiccup hailed his friend as he methodically chose fish to put in a basket for Meatlug's evening repast, "Can I spend the night at your house?"

"Uh, sure. I'll ask my mom to make crabcakes." Fishlegs straightened, a fish in each hand, looking puzzled.

"Did you have a fight with your new mom?" That was Tuffnut.

"She's not his new mom, she's his old mom who liked dragons better than him." Countered Ruffnut.

"Whatever. Did your parents kick you out?" Tuffnut persisted.

"No! I just want to give them some privacy tonight – maybe for, uh, a few nights. They've been apart for 20 years…."

"Oh, I get it," said Ruffnut.

"I don't," said Tuffnut.

I explained this plot point briefly in my review of HTTYD2, but it has generated such ire, to the extent that negative comments may interfere with the film's gross, that it warrants its own rant piece.

No-one wants Stoick to die, let alone be killed by Toothless. His death and funeral are so excruciating to watch that they make repeated viewings challenging. Each time (and I've seen HTTYD2 nearly a dozen times) we get to the wonderful Stoick-Valka reunion, a highlight of the film, I start to tense up in anticipation of the pain in the next scene. It's akin to ripping off a fresh scab that is never given time to heal over and scar: Just when I begin to come to terms with Stoick's demise, the wound is re-opened.

Stoick is a beloved central character, and it seems cruel for him to die just after reuniting with his wife after 20 years of presumed celibacy. Thinking himself a widower, he had no obligation to be faithful to Valka. If he had wanted another woman in his life to help raise Hiccup whilst he was busy chiefing, he would have remarried, or as chief had his pick of the women in the village for light dalliances, but one gets the impression that he was nursing a broken heart the whole time. So, I wanted them at least to have one night together. Yes, they got a kiss, a song, a dance, and group hug, but ……. 20 years! It had already been a long day, and sleeping in the cavern, with Bludvist's invasion occurring at dawn the next morning, would have made sense temporally. But, the film is PG, and there is a sense of urgency about keeping the story moving. I can understand why they opted to rush from Valka's decision to reunite with her family into the battle that destroys those giddy plans; I just wish on a personal level that they'd had one night alone together first.

But sex and romance aside, the central theme of this instalment is Hiccup's coming-of-age, his ascension to the chiefdom. He can't embrace the role of chief whilst his father is still on Berk. Can you see Stoick deferring to Hiccup and letting him make his own mistakes? Or the villagers refraining from appealing to Stoick when they disagreed with Hiccup's decisions? Peaceful transitions of power between living leaders are a feature we associate with modern democracies – one of the first took place in the U.S. in 1801, nearly 1,000 years after HTTYD – not hereditary monarchies. Yes, elderly or infirm monarchs have sometimes abdicated in favour of their younger and fitter offspring, but it's not a practice that is easy to reconcile with Viking culture in general or Stoick's larger-than-life presence in particular.

Also, until Hiccup facilitated peace with dragons five years prior, the Viking lifespan was battle-limited. You don't see many grey-haired Berkians aside from Gothi and (probably not first to the front lines) Mildew. That could change if Hiccup maintains the peace, but the image of an arthritic and liver-spotted Stoick whittling quietly into his dotage is antithetical to his character. And as much credit as we must give Stoick for his ability to embrace change, there is a certain feeling of rightness in Hiccup having his father by his side for the first 20 years of his life, in the dragon-fighting days, teaching him the old ways, and now having his mother advising him for the next 20 in the new dragon-friendly age. Having the whole family together would have been wonderful – you can see it in Hiccup's eyes when his parents reunite – but the story required a new leader for a new era.

Remember, this is the middle film of a trilogy; as self-contained and satisfying as it may be on its own, it is inherently transitional. Hiccup has been brought up short in his self-perception: Getting people to change and keeping the peace is not going to be as easy as it has been so far, but he has inherited some tools for the job. He can no longer take the dichotomous stance that he is opposite his father in every way. Reality is more nuanced. He takes after his mother substantially but he is, as Gobber noted, "every bit the boar-headed stubborn Viking" Stoick ever was. When he states through tears at his father's funeral that he did not think he could ever be that brave, that selfless, we in the audience grasp the irony as no-one could have been braver or more selfless than Hiccup in his battle with the Red Death. He needs to learn and grow as chief now. As Stoick said, he's ready.