Perfection.

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2014)

A sequel never exceeds its predecessor....before this film I would have believed that until my dying day. Sequels are always a stepping stone from the first film this is believed by most sequel directors. They want to create the same effect as the first film but create it to a new, higher level. They want you to fall in love with the same characters all over again; enjoy the music whether it's from the same composer like in how to train to your dragon 2 or from a different composer like in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. Luckily for how to train your dragon 2 they had the same incredible crew they had in the first film such as producer Bonnie Arnold and director Dean Deblois.
The first how to train your dragon came out in 2010 and was a big success. It was nominated for 2 Oscars, winning 20 awards and getting a worldwide gross of $500,000,000 on a budget of £165,000,000. How to train your dragon 2 came out 4 years later due to its intricate animation and its incredible actors whose schedules needed to be revolved around. Personally it feels like I have been waiting centuries to see Hiccup and Toothless back on the big screen. 4 years is a long time to lose connection with the characters and with the scenery but the second I heard the words "This is Berk." in the beginning of this film. I was 13 again at Christmas watching How to train your dragon and crying at the scene where Hiccup, Toothless and Astrid were flying through the clouds. The cinematography; the music; the voices; the animation; the scripting. Truthfully I am struggling to find a simple flaw within this film. It gave me the exact feeling of How to train your dragon only better, stronger; A LOT more emotion. I absolutely adore this film and I am not the only one who thinks this, Chicago times reviewer Bill Zwecker states that how to train your dragon 2 is a "superbly crafted sequel."
OK where to begin? I know this is an animated film but the camera work amazes me to no end. The opening establishing shot of Berk zooming in on these tiny, seemingly insignificant details and then scoping out to show the characters we follow for the next few hours. It's intricate and ore-inspiring. Truthfully I don't know how the animators made Berk feel like it was real. Like it truly existed. The shots and the detail were that good. The scripting was flawless. I haven't actually read the book but I imagine many of the lines were stolen from Cressida Cowell. The scripting was realistic and funny and made you empathise with the characters as well as laugh along with them. It did however have some cheesy, apple pie-ish lines which were somewhat similar to How to train your dragon 1 such as "stop being so stoick, Stoick!" But there's nothing wrong with cheesy, right? The best scene in fact in the film was probably the cheesiest one. Hiccup, (Jay Baruchel) Gobber, (Craig Ferguson) Toothless, Stoick, (Gerard Butler) and new character Valka (Cate Blanchett) who is in fact Hiccup's mother and Stoick's wife are all together and Stoick begins to sing and it's incredible to see such a strong almost sociopathic character start singing just to cheer up Valka. The song he sings is a song the two of them share and is special to them. (And apparently to Gobber as he joins in) At first Valka seems to not appreciate the gesture but then begins to sing along and throughout this scene we see medium and close up shots of Hiccup smiling as he has a family again and you see Gobber make him dance and the music gets louder and the lighting gets brighter giving this great sense of optimism and hope and makes us as an audience know that everything is going to be okay. I know I wasn't the only one crying happy tears during this scene. It was amazing and gave me the exact same feel as the first one only more hopeful. Now for the score. I am a huge fan of film soundtracks. My favourites include Treasure planet, (2002) Jurassic Park (1993) and ET. (1982) For me a good soundtrack is something that stays in your head despite no lyrics. It just gets stuck in your head and a few hours later you end up humming it randomly. The score affects so much in a film. It makes the audience feel something. It makes them feel connected emotionally to the characters and the settings and the story. Most composers use the score simply to tell the audience how to feel at every point in the film. Truthfully that is a mistake, sure suspenseful long, deep notes in a horror work to get the audience petrified that a bad guy with a chainsaw is hiding out of sight behind a tree, but the audience know how to feel, you see a character you love depressed you feel depressed. Music should simply be used as an essence as a way to make the audience memorise what is going on. John Powell does this flawlessly. I fell in love with this soundtrack in the first film. I have 3 CDs at home. The how to train your dragon soundtrack is one. The music is amazing. I cry each time I hear it (happy tears of course) and when I hear the same tracks in this film and then the same tracks edited to give them an extra flair. I absolutely love it. Okay I am going to end it here. I loved this film. The second I stepped out of the cinema I could've turned right back around and watched it again and would have still felt the same emotions I did the first time. This film is intricate, amazing, funny and wonderful to watch.