How to Train Your Dragon 2 flies further from Berk than its predecessor ever dared, and the view is worth the trip. Dean DeBlois, who co-directed the 2010 original, returns as sole writer and director for this second chapter, and DreamWorks Animation gives him a bigger world to play in. The film premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and runs 102 minutes. It is the second installment in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, based on the book series by Cressida Cowell.
Trailer, via DreamWorks Dragons.
Hiccup at Twenty, Stoick at His Back
Five years have passed since the Vikings of Berk made peace with the dragons. Hiccup, now 20, spends his days mapping unexplored lands with Toothless, his Night Fury. His father, Stoick the Vast, pushes him toward the chieftain’s seat. Hiccup is not sure he is ready.
That uncertainty is the engine of the film. Jay Baruchel voices Hiccup with the same nervous energy he brought to the first movie, and Gerard Butler’s Stoick carries the weight of a father who sees a leader his son cannot yet see in himself.
A Burnt Forest and a Warlord Named Drago
While investigating a burnt forest, Hiccup and Astrid are ambushed by dragon trappers led by Eret, who works for Drago Bludvist. Drago is a warlord who plots to enslave all dragons into becoming soldiers. Hiccup and Astrid escape to Berk and warn Stoick.
Stoick fortifies Berk and tells them how he met Drago once at a chieftain gathering. Drago offered protection from dragons if they pledged to serve him. Upon being denied, he had his dragons attack them. Stoick was the sole survivor.
Djimon Hounsou voices Drago with a cold authority that makes him the most dangerous presence in the film. Kit Harington joins as Eret, a dragon trapper who works for Drago.
Valka, and the Ice Nest of the Bewilderbeast
Hiccup refuses to accept that war is inevitable. He flies off with Toothless to find Drago and change his mind. Instead he meets a mysterious dragon rider: his mother, Valka, presumed dead after a dragon took her during a raid.
Cate Blanchett voices Valka, and the reunion gives the film its emotional center. Valka could not bring herself to slay dragons, so she rescues them from Drago and brings them to an island nest of ice formed by a massive, ice-breathing alpha dragon called a Bewilderbeast. The Bewilderbeast can control smaller dragons by emitting hypnotic sound waves.
Stoick and Gobber track Hiccup to the nest. Stoick discovers Valka is alive, and they reunite.
The Cast, Returning and New
The returning voice cast is deep, and the new additions earn their place:
- Jay Baruchel as Hiccup
- Cate Blanchett as Valka
- Gerard Butler as Stoick
- Craig Ferguson as Gobber
- America Ferrera as Astrid
- Jonah Hill as Snotlout
- Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs
- T.J. Miller as Tuffnut
- Kristen Wiig as Ruffnut
- Djimon Hounsou as Drago
- Kit Harington as Eret
- Kieron Elliott as Hoark the Haggard
DeBlois Builds a Bigger World
DeBlois agreed to return on the condition that he could make a trilogy, and he cited The Empire Strikes Back and My Neighbor Totoro as his main inspirations. The expanded scope of the former is especially visible here. DeBlois and his creative team visited Svalbard for setting ideas. Composer John Powell returned to score the film.
It was DreamWorks’ first film to use scalable multi-core processing and the studio’s new animation and lighting software. The result is a film that looks like the studio spent its money where it shows.
Training is over. The adventure begins.
Where It Lands
The middle chapter of a trilogy is the hardest to get right. How to Train Your Dragon 2 carries the burden well. It expands the map, deepens Hiccup’s family, and introduces a villain who raises the stakes without turning the story into noise.
What matters most is Valka. The film’s best idea is that Hiccup’s instinct to protect dragons came from somewhere, and that his mother paid a terrible price for it. Blanchett and Baruchel make that connection land.
The weaker stretch is the middle, where the plotting gets crowded with trappers, armadas and a Bewilderbeast whose rules take a while to settle. The film is at its best when it slows down and lets Hiccup and Valka talk.
This is a sequel that earns its scope. It does not match the clean surprise of the first film, but it aims higher and mostly hits. DreamWorks built a trilogy here, and this installment is the reason the third one had somewhere to go.
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