Great animation, entertaining but not up to the charm of the first one 4 years earlier.

Rating: Null/10 (21 November 2014)

I saw "How To Train Your Dragon" just about 4 years ago. I just re- read my comments from back then, to recall my reactions to it. That is a very charming movie, where the young dragon hunter Hiccup wants to impress his massive dad, traps a seldom seen nighttime dragon. He damages the dragon's tail in the process, but manages to fabricate a piece of a tail, and befriends and trains the feared dragon.
In this recent movie Jay Baruchel is back as the voice of Hiccup, and since the first movie the two have bonded and are seen constantly flying as a team. But the story comes from a rival dragon trapping clan threatening the existence of Hiccup, his dragon, and the rest of his clan.
So the movie contains many conflicts, battles where dragons are trapped and people are threatened. While I applaud their efforts to come up with something different, this movie has none of the charm of the first installment. There is a touching human-like story, but overall nowhere near what we saw in the first one.
SPOILERS: A new character is voiced by Cate Blanchett as Valka , the long missing mother of Hiccup, feared to be dead. She is discovered as everyone is out to defeat the bad guys, and she is reunited with her son and her husband, Stoick, voiced again by Gerard Butler.