The excellence of animation movies !!!!!

Rating: 10/10 (29 October 2014)

In the director's own words, "This movie is an odyssey through a dream, both tender and nightmarish". The latest installment of the "How to Train Your Dragon" franchise (2nd part) surpassed its predecessor in terms of depth of story. This movie's story takes place five years after where the previous one's story came to a halt. The main protagonists of the epic adventure, eccentric teen Hiccup and his tamed dragon Toothless have helped the Viking tribe, Berk community, to build a society where humans and dragons live alongside in harmony. Once while exploring uncharted territories, Hiccup and his friend Astrid came across a humongous ice fort where they met a notorious dragon entrapper who works for an insane conqueror, Drago. Against his father's will hiccup set off to stop the inevitable war and ran into a mesmerizing 'Dragon Whisperer', Valka who happened to be his long lost mother in a castle. That fortress was an icy stronghold that was erected by the titanic ice breathing 'Alpha' dragon and in a dragon clan all the other smaller dragons abide by the Alpha. But shortly afterwards their hideout was compromised and Drago's massive army, that included another alpha dragon, overwhelmed the entire dragon clan. During the battle Hiccup's father was brutally murdered and the winner Drago left the battlefield with all the dragons of the dragon clan bewitched under the hypnosis of obedience of the Alpha and shockingly, Toothless was one of them. Afterwards Hiccup invaded the alpha's army and his love for Toothless broke the spell of hypnosis and with the help of the fearless "night fury" Toothless, Hiccup and his meager army consisting of barely a handful of teen soldiers brought down the tyrant's reign. This is pretty much the storyline of the movie but somewhere along the line of presenting this utterly soothing story this movie transcends the obvious appeal of the story and takes the audience to a magical voyage to a land of extremely vivid imagination. It sometimes feels like an emotional roller coaster, sometimes feels like a story of vengeance, sometimes mundane but mostly blissful. This movie also portrays a perfect coming of age tale as young Hiccup undergoes the phase of sever indecision whether to succeed his father as the chieftain of the Vikings community or not. This movie is set in a surreal world where dragons coexist with human but the portrayal of the events made all of this believable and the audience can relate themselves to the flow of events as it leaves quite an ample space for imagination to run wild. The director (Dean DeBlois) is triumphant in his creation as the audience can't but feel attached to the characters that bloom so vibrantly as they behold the magic unfold in the midst of some exquisite storytelling. It starts as a fairytale but somehow sheds the childish image as it provides deep insight regarding to ego conflicts, everlasting friendship, animal-human bond that transgresses the premise of a standard fairytale. It is also a motivational story as it makes us believe that only one determined person is enough to bring about a radical change or revolution irrespective of his age, physical size or social stat-quo. DreamWorks animation studio has always been one of the leading achievers in the field of animated movies and in this movie the quality of animation is nothing less than extra-ordinary. The voice acting of well-known stars like Jay Baruchel (Hiccup), Cate Blanchett (Valka), Gerard Butler (Hiccup's father) was superb and the director's (who also happens to be the writer and screenwriter) stroke of genius made the movie captivating throughout its entire course of 102 minutes runtime. There are no noteworthy downsides of the movie apart from the predictable plot twist that featured the family reunion of hiccup and his lost mother. Though it was presented as a twist, the audience could see through it even before it took place. But then again, this movie doesn't focus on unfathomable or unforeseeable plot-twists as it never aspired to present the vibe of a thriller movie. This movie's genre can be categorized as fantasy, comedy but in wholesome perspective, it's a genre defying experience as it doesn't remain loyal to any single genre in particular. Overall, this movie stirs up thoughts and as the end-credits start to role, the audience has a hard time leaving the fantasy world. Fayruz Maysha