Training knight

Rating: Null/10 (19 June 2014)

Well, there's not a lot of training going' on in this, the movie having dispensed with all that in the first movie. This now, is a grand soap-opera, a la 'Star Wars'. Not necessarily a bad thing, and mo' Craig Ferguson is always welcome.
With the animated prod design that repeatedly evocative of 'Avatar', this one does try to soar high, and has a few beats that keep it up a notch compared to a lot of non-Disney, non-Pixar animated fare. But it does not quite reach the pinnacle achieved by the first one, other than for the nice camaraderie between the leads, that seems to have grown a bit stronger.
The 'Empire strikes back' reference by other audience-members is also spot-on, and you might wanna get prepped on how to explain a few key occurrences to your child. Not an easy ask.
The new baddie, voiced by Djimon Hounsou, is a sadly under-developed, stock- baddie, who's not even menacing, though he's all-powerful to the extent of making some key changes to the landscape that these movies reside in. In spite of that, he's just meh.
There are still quite a bit of things that work, and most of it is credit to the animation and the action set-pieces. And yes, mo' dragons, and quite sure, for me at least, more Ferg. But all the 'Avatar' esque imagery gets tiring (perhaps because I've watched that flick like a gazillion times). The 3D's actually fantastic, and this is one of those movies that make the case FOR 3D, rather than 'those' ones that make it look all yucky. The voice-work's pretty decent, since other than Ferguson, Baruchel and Butler do really good jobs. He and Blanchett croon, even. There's quite a bit of comedy thrown in, but it's not for the ones who treasure smart repartee, but for those who get high on Michael Bay's Transformers kinda comedy. And that's really sad, considering the benchmark set by the first one.
The soundtrack's a complete drag, in perfect accompaniment to the plot, which is all tired and pedestrian, with a baddie who has no reason to be in this movie at all, and is meh all the way.
All in all, quite a good watch, for once, on the big screen. But I will not be induced to watch it once again. I had higher expectations. Sigh.