When How to Train Your Dragon debuted in theaters back in 2010, co-writer-director Dean DuBois was simply hoping for audiences to connect with what was essentially a passion project. Oh, it connected alright—to the tune of just under a half a billion at the box office. Yes, billion with a “b!”
The film series, based on the beloved children’s book anthology by Cressida Cowell, released its sequel in 2014 and now it’s time to say goodbye. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is an action packed, highly emotional send-off to a whole village of beloved characters—most notably Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) and his dragon, Toothless (Randy Thom is the voice actor extraordinaire behind those pitch perfect dragon tones).
The Hidden World has so many things going for it, where to begin is a challenge. So often, a trilogy can’t figure out quite how to wrap things up with a nice little bow that satisfies its legion of fans emotionally, viscerally and cinematically. This third film in the Dragon franchise does not have that problem. In fact, many in the theater were a balling mess—in the best of ways, of course. The film’s story (still from DuBois) achieves its conclusion in a manner that is worthy of the journey. It helps if you have seen the first two films, but it is in no way a requirement. The emotional anvil that is the conclusion is certainly enhanced for those of us who have been riding that dragon since 2010.
Hiccup is now the leader of his clan, what with the events of the last film catapulting him into the chief role. He and his friends are still wrangling dragons and saving them when they are enslaved, captured or worse. In fact, that is exactly how this third installment commences. Hiccup’s tough but fair soulmate Astrid (America Ferrera), Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig), Tuffnut (Justin Rupple) and Eret (Kit Harrington) have perfected the art of the film’s moniker and have taken what they do to a higher level.
Three things happen that rock their world. The titular locale is discovered, and its everything that has been promised over two previous films. Toothless, and everyone who knows his adorable soul, discovers that he is not alone. There is a beautiful, pristine white dragon who captures his fancy right from the get-go. Then, there’s the arrival of the dastardly and devilish Grimmel the Grisly (voiced by F. Murray Abraham of Amadeus fame). He threatens the peaceful balance of the entire world. If he gets his way, not only will the Alpha dragon (Toothless, of course!) be wiped from this earth, but Grimmel believes he then will be able to control all of dragon kind—and thus, human kind as well.
Those three elements colliding is a forgone conclusion. But how we get to that electrifying story point is richly thought out and brilliantly executed by DuBois and his team of storytellers. What is so fascinating about How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is that you know that this is the final chapter, yet how things progress thematically is achieved so organically that the viewer is so awash in the story, these three-dimensional and layered characters, and continually trying to guess where the tale will take us to next, that it never feels like the final chapter of a trilogy. It is just good cinema that reminds us why we adore the movies. Well… that is until we are supposed to grapple with those “saying goodbye” emotions that only creep into our conscious and subconscious when they are meant to. That is saying so much about the talents of DuBois and the books he drew inspiration from.
I never felt that way about The Hunger Games or even the “on another level of excellence” that is the Harry Potter movies. We always knew by the slightest alterations of tone that we were in the final movie of the series and that these were boxes that had to be ticked off to fulfill promises made early in the story. Those two series, for example, ended nicely and in a manner that pleased the hundreds of millions of fans who inhaled both books and films. Where How to Train Your Dragon differs is that Hidden World is its own entity in such a way that one is so caught in the web that is the struggle at hand, one never arrives at the realization that it has to come to an end at some point.
That elevates the emotional power of the close of that third act exponentially.
The cast should be beyond proud of themselves. Their hard work pays off in droves with both hilarity and heartfelt connections between film fans and cinema characters. Baruchel to Ferrera, Wiig to Hill, all take their characters to a place that—despite being an animated movie—feels as realistically grounded as any lauded live action film. Cate Blanchett joined the series in the second film as Hiccup’s mother, Valka. She was such a welcomed addition for the middle chapter. Her mere existence was such an explosive “reveal” that her characterization became a highlight of that film. This time out, like every other player on this playground, Blanchett has fallen back and plays her part as one sensational spoke in a wickedly entertaining wheel. Although their roles have decreased, in screen time and importance to the story as a whole, Craig Ferguson’s Gobber and Gerard Butler’s Stoick are both stunning spokes in that wheel as well.
While all these balls in the air that DuBois had to manage as lead storyteller, establishing a villain that stands out from the ensemble is crucial. Casting the Oscar winning Abraham in that part was a stroke of genius. His command manipulating our concern for our beloved animated friends is fierce. Creatively speaking, DuBois hit a home run with this particular character in that he is by far the most menacing of all the baddies in the series. Also, if he is toppled by our gang of dragon-riding heroes, the richness of his evil catapults us to embrace the end and all it means, i.e. there is nothing more that these characters can or have to prove to us.
Having rich source material is a huge help, sure, but what DuBois has accomplished with his How to Train Your Dragon trilogy is sensationally sublime. His work across the entire series comes off as something that was never pre-ordained. No one ever thought, not even DreamWorks, that success for that first film would be a given. Yet, Dubois penned his screenplays in such a way that one would swear he knew that every morsel of plot he doled out over the last nine years was fatefully planned.
That creative mastermind brilliantly grabbed our hearts and minds the moment Hiccup closed his eyes and ever so gently placed his open palm out for Toothless to meet it. They won each other’s hearts at that moment, much as DuBois did the same with our collective hearts (and minds) and never let us go until The Hidden World’s tear-soaked conclusion.
Grade: A