NovelSisters

So I want to start off this post apologizing for being absent for the past few weeks. I was caught up in Jury Duty, and then couldn’t make it to a theater until today. But now I finally got to see How to Train your Dragon 2! So get ready for a critique.

Here’s a preview for anyone who’s interested. 

The first How to Train your Dragon was an awesome movie. In fact I might even call it my favorite movie. There was a realness to the story and characters, and the imagery and music were beautiful. I can still stick it in the DVD player and watch it at the drop of a hat. (unlike a lot of movies I like but can only watch a couple of times).

Keeping all this in mind, you can see why I was super excited to see the sequel. Believe me it was hard to wait till today to see it, I’ve been hounding my sister, trying to get her to go with me for the past week.

But all that said, now I have to say what I really thought of it. It was not disappointing, I’m so glad the movie market has figured out a way to make decent sequels. This one dealt with a lot of varying themes, but the one that sticks out to me is Identity. This may be because I have identity on my mind, from my church’s sermons. But in any case, it is one of the prominent themes of the movie and I love how they dealt with it.

For everyone who’s seen the first movie, we have a basis for who everyone is, what their personality, relationships, and character look like. But the movie opens with Hiccup still struggling with who he is. His dad, and most of the village have the expectation that he will be chief. But he doesn’t feel adequate to that position. He is very different from his father, the current chief, and he knows nothing of who his mother was, so he feels at a loss.

The story continues with twists and turns, eventually leading Hiccup to find his long lost mother, and begin to grab hold of a new identity, one that fully embraces his dragon training abilities. But it’s not that simple, and after loss and heartache Hiccup must come to terms with the fact that he is going to have to be both a chief and a dragon rider. Not one or the other. While trying on his new identity as chief, he also has to hold onto the Hiccup we know and love. The one who is best friends with Toothless, and would do anything to save him.

The movie wraps up with a satisfactory climax and Hiccup is now firmly established as both the chief of his village and the same old dragon rider. His mother sums it up well, telling Hiccup, “You have the heart of a chief, and the soul of a dragon.” Hiccup has become a chief who protects his own and is willing to fight to keep peace in the world.

All in all, it was a great movie, and a worthy successor to the first Dragon movie!

Well hopefully I didn’t give away any critical plot points so if you haven’t seen it, you can still enjoy the movie.