Flying Higher

Rating: 8/10 (14 June 2014)

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It's been said that the main problem with doing a film sequel is trying to capture the same essence of the original, while trying to outdo its scale, effects, and set pieces. For How to Train Your Dragon, however, trying to redo the somewhat Dances With Wolves-esque story would be both illogical and redundant. How to Train Your Dragon 2 delivers bigger thrills and a larger scale while retaining the solid writing, flesh-and-blood characters and emotional impact of the first – in a word, it soars.
The film picks up about five years after the first, and our main protagonist Hiccup (again voiced by the well cast Jay Baruchel) is at the dawn of his twenties. His father Stoic (Gerard Butler) has just brought up the topic of succeeding him as chief, to which Hiccup responds by leaving with Toothless (presumably for the day). After being found by his girlfriend Astrid (America Ferrera), the two trek even farther and find a group of foreign men trying to enslave dragons. They learn of a strange man named Drago (Djimoun Hounsou) who is forming an army of the beasts under his control, and a bit later are reunited with Hiccup's presumed-dead mother Valka (Cate Blanchett). What follows is a roller coaster ride of emotions and thrills, with a couple surprises along the way.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 hits all the right points as a film sequel, while daring to be darker than your average family-friendly animated film. A handful of new characters are introduced, but they're each given the right amount of screen time and development (based on importance, that is). The universe, action sequences and dragons themselves are bigger, but not at the cost of story. As they face both internal and external conflicts, our heroes once again grow to meet them.
Few films are perfect, however, and this isn't one of them. The modest runtime of 100 minutes would be fine for your average animated film, but there are points – including a pivotal point after the climax – that could have used a little more time for reflection. That, or the running gag of Ruffnutt (voiced by Kristen Wiig) interacting with boys could have been substituted with other scenes, since said jokes are unlikely to entertain anyone over a certain age. There are a couple instances of hard-to-understand action (or rather, inaction) by characters in the last two acts, but they are spoilers as well as being minor nitpicks.
So is the film worth your time and money, particularly concerning a 3D surcharge? The answer is a strong "yes". This a sequel that works in almost every facet, with John Powell's memorable score and even a well-placed song sung by two major characters (which doesn't become a musical number) rounding out its strengths. What might have crashed and burned is flying just as high as other year-so-far highlights, and with a third film to complete this trilogy all ready greenlit, Hiccup and Toothless are set to break the stratosphere.