The promise was there, but this is ultimately a subpar effort from Dreamworks. The battle scenes are worth the entry ticket alone though.

Rating: 5/10 (8 January 2015)

Hot off the critical and box office success that was How To Train Your Dragon, Dreamworks wasted little time in announcing a trilogy, and that second installment landed among us last summer.
Let me preface this by saying that I did not have the best experience leading up to this film. The marketing was inconsistent, starting with a fantastic teaser, which was followed by a terrible trailer. Terrible in the sense that it spoiled what I thought must have been a major plot point. Honestly, it was a crazy decision to include some of the details that they did. I was hoping to be proved wrong by the actual film, and that is was a piece of genius double bluff marketing. Unfortunately not.
The original How To Train Your Dragon was truly brilliant, and if the sequel even just matched the efforts of 4 years ago they would be doing well. It had a lot to live up to, and had already lost some of my favour in the build up.
At the end of the day it does fall short of the first film, and also short of the usual standard of animation in the past couple of years (terrifically high). How To Train Your Dragon 2 lacked that surprise spark that makes so many animation films wonderful for adults as well as children. It is not difficult to make an entertaining kids film. The Smurfs series is an example of a production made purely for children with no regard for their guardians. How To Train Your Dragon 2 is miles better than the Smurfs, but the fact of the matter is that I found myself constantly being drawn out of the film by inconsistencies and illogic.
From dialogue that purely exists to expose the plot and a few convenient plot twists, one could feel constantly reminded that they were watching a film in dark room rather than inhibiting a world for 2 hours. Harsh maybe, but these are the perils of setting such high standards for yourself. There was a romance plot thread that didn't seem to know what to do with itself. It existed and didn't really justify the time given to it over the course of the film. The stakes were also raised, but the more personal story of last time worked better than the grander scale afforded this time.
But as far as negatives go, it rather does stop there. The animation is stellar, and the one area in which the first film is surpassed is the sense of scale you get with these dragons. It's very difficult to portray size realistically past a certain level, but the combination of animation and sound really brings these multi-ton dragons to life. The animation is used really well too. When you are given the gift of being able to stretch and morph things in any way you want, you really should use it. The comical dragons showed extent of how animation should be used. It's also funny enough, not as funny as the first film, but still contains a laugh here and there.
The problem is that all the highlights of the film are the individual jokes and spectacles rather than the complete package. It has most of what is required in animation for the standard level of quality, but is let down by mediocre storytelling. The glue which holds everything together is missing, and all the pieces were so beautiful too!
Read more at rabsi1.weebly.com/film/