Fine continuation of franchise

Rating: 7/10 (1 December 2014)

It's 5 years later. Berk has become a dragon friendly village. While Hiccup and Astrid go exploring, they encounter dragon trapper Eret who blames them for an ice attack. A warlord named Drago Bludvist is gathering an army of dragons. Hiccup comes up with a plan to reason with the ruthless Drago. The plan goes astray and Hiccup is captured by a mysterious dragon rider. The rider turns out to be his mother Valka who has been protecting a colony of dragons including a giant Alpha which controls all other dragons except for the baby dragons. Drago attacks the colony with his own Alpha to wrest control of every dragon including Toothless.
This movie does something different from other animated franchise. It ages the cartoon characters. One of the advantages of animated movies is that the characters don't have to change. That's why it's somewhat surprising that they did this. It's commendable but the franchise loses a bit of something. Part of the charm of the original is that these little kids were able to teach something to the adults. There is something compelling about little kids riding dragons. However this movie does follow some other aspects of franchise math. Mainly there are dragons that are even bigger than before. The danger is even higher. All of that works fine in this continuation of the franchise.