Good dragons under the control of bad people do bad things.

How to Train Your Dragon 2

(2014)

(SPOILERS) There’s good reason to be cynical about the current state of animated sequels, what with every studio shamelessly strip-mining properties for franchise potential, irrespective of whether they merit it or not. No one is screaming for more Cars and Kung Fu Panda. Actually, they probably are, but they don’t know any better. DreamWorks is particularly guilty, although they at least never betrayed lofty pretensions the way Pixar did. That the first How to Train Your Dragon was such a pleasant surprise, the best animation from the studio since the first Shrek, instantly rang warning bells. Were they going to relentlessly plunder Hiccup and Toothless, creating disdain the way they did with that series? The answer is no, fortunately. How to Train Your Dragon 2 may not scale the heights of the first outing, but it more than arrests the studio’s backwards slide in quality.

Returning director Dean DeBlois cited The Empire Strikes Back as informing his approach to the sequel, hardly a surprising touchstone, but one he feeds from in all the right ways. This doesn’t mean Dragon 2 ends on a cliffhanger, or that Hiccup (Jay Baruchel, whose vocal nuances ensure that his character will never be the most butch of heroes) must undergo a training regime to make him a master before discovering his parent is a villain.

He does meet his long lost mum, and loses his dad, which ensures the series’ internal mythology grows in entirely complementary ways. It’s refreshing to have a character, in an environment beset by Marvel, Joss Whedon, and Steven Moffat, where a character dies and stays dead. Best of all, DeBlois ensures this has a powerful emotional impact (the only shortcoming is that, in a movie that is always moving, the hero is back to being supremely perky for the subsequent set piece).

More than that, DeBlois even has his own involving take on turning to the Dark Side, in which the loveable Toothless has his mind possessed by a Great Bewilderbeast, an “Alpha” dragon that can direct the actions of any dragon. That Stoick (Gerard Butler, having much more fun, and showing much more emotional range, than we ever see in the flesh) should fall at the fiery breath of Toothless makes the loss all the more potent, and ensures this is a family film more in the early Disney tradition of not soft-pedalling loss and darkness.

It leads to a bracing climax, far superior to the majority of last summer’s blockbusters (which, even the best of them, fell back on blowing shit up), in which little Hiccup challenges the Alpha. The massive monster mayhem of the Alpha is also much more impressive than the massive monster mayhem of Godzilla or the previous year’s Pacific Rim, because there’s emotional investment in the carnage on display.

The character design is generally no more distinctive than any other CGI affair, which is, alas, one of the banes of a form of animation that chooses to play things safe. But DeBlois had previous directed one of the few Second Golden Age Disneys to mix things up, Lilo & Stitch, and, within the physical features that could easily be dropped into Rise of the Guardians or The Croods, he ensures there’s warmth and idiosyncrasy.

The voice cast, curiously divided into a Scottish older generation and American younger, generally acquit themselves well. Kit Harington, formally consigned to slightly wet leading roles, has a bit of fun with the Han Solo-esque Eret, while Craig Ferguson provides the majority of the chuckles as Stoick’s right-hand man Gobber (“This is why I never married. This, and one other reason”). I’m not so sure about Cate Blanchett’s Scotty accent as Valka, Hiccup’s newfound mumsy, though, and Djimon Hounsou is shoutily hissable but one-note as villain Drago.

Perhaps Dragon 2’s most illustrious aspect is that, unlike say Madagascar, it absolutely is not propped up on its comic sidekicks. The events befalling the main players are much more engaging, such that the antics of Hiccup’s crew (comprising America Ferrara, Kristen Wiig, Joan Hill and Christopher Mintz-Bleeding-Plasse) could be blissfully excised without anyone much noticing. The reunion of Vaka and Stoick is a quite wonderful scene by any standards; live action movies would do well to be so moving without descending into manipulative mush (notably, it also, wisely for a family movie, sidesteps offering Valka recriminations for abandoning her family).

So there’s good reason this was the biggest animated movie of 2014, even if it showed a disappointing performance in the US (quite why is anyone’s guess; the taken for granted title, and inability to explain why it was different to the first might not have helped, but that didn’t hamper Despicable Me 2). It may make a meal of its message in the final stages (“This is what it is to earn a dragon’s loyalty”, and too much talk of Hiccup as a voice of peace), unnecessary as it has already set out its stall with accomplishment, but this is a minor criticism. There’s good reason to look forward to How to Train Your Dragon 3 in 2018, even if we have to suffer Kung Fu Panda 3 and The Croods 2 in order to get there.

Comments

We live in a twilight world.

Tenet (2020)
(SPOILERS) I’ve endured a fair few confusingly-executed action sequences in movies – more than enough, actually – but I don’t think I’ve previously had the odd experience of being on the edge of my seat during one while simultaneously failing to understand its objectives and how those objectives are being attempted. Which happened a few times during Tenet. If I stroll over to the Wiki page and read the plot synopsis, it is fairly explicable (fairly) but as a first dive into this Christopher Nolan film, I frequently found it, if not impenetrable, then most definitely opaque.

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

You can’t climb a ladder, no. But you can skip like a goat into a bar.

Juno and the Paycock (1930)
(SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s second sound feature. Such was the lustre of this technological advance that a wordy play was picked. By Sean O’Casey, upon whom Hitchcock based the prophet of doom at the end of The Birds. Juno and the Paycock, set in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, begins as a broad comedy of domestic manners, but by the end has descended into full-blown Greek (or Catholic) tragedy. As such, it’s an uneven but still watchable affair, even if Hitch does nothing to disguise its stage origins.

Anything can happen in Little Storping. Anything at all.

The Avengers 2.22: Murdersville
Brian Clemens' witty take on village life gone bad is one of the highlights of the fifth season. Inspired by Bad Day at Black Rock, one wonders how much Murdersville's premise of unsettling impulses lurking beneath an idyllic surface were set to influence both Straw Dogs and The Wicker Mana few years later (one could also suggest it premeditates the brand of backwoods horrors soon to be found in American cinema from the likes of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper).

The protocol actually says that most Tersies will say this has to be a dream.

Jupiter Ascending (2015)
(SPOILERS) The Wachowski siblings’ wildly patchy career continues apace. They bespoiled a great thing with The Matrix sequels (I liked the first, not the second), misfired with Speed Racer (bubble-gum visuals aside, hijinks and comedy ain’t their forte) and recently delivered the Marmite Sense8 for Netflix (I was somewhere in between on it). Their only slam-dunk since The Matrix put them on the movie map is Cloud Atlas, and even that’s a case of rising above its limitations (mostly prosthetic-based). Jupiter Ascending, their latest cinema outing and first stab at space opera, elevates their lesser works by default, however. It manages to be tone deaf in all the areas that count, and sadly fetches up at the bottom of their filmography pile.

This is a case where the roundly damning verdicts have sadly been largely on the ball. What’s most baffling about the picture is that, after a reasonably engaging set-up, it determinedly bores the pants off you. I haven’t enco…

Seems silly, doesn't it? A wedding. Given everything that's going on.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (2010)
(SPOILERS) What’s good in the first part of the dubiously split (of course it was done for the art) final instalment in the Harry Potter saga is very good, let down somewhat by decisions to include material that would otherwise have been rightly excised and the sometimes-meandering travelogue. Even there, aspects of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I can be quite rewarding, taking on the tone of an apocalyptic ‘70s aftermath movie or episode of Survivors (the original version), as our teenage heroes (some now twentysomethings) sleep rough, squabble, and try to salvage a plan. The main problem is that the frequently strong material requires a robust structure to get the best from it.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

When I barked, I was enormous.

Dean Spanley (2008)
(SPOILERS) There is such a profusion of average, respectable – but immaculately made – British period drama held up for instant adulation, it’s hardly surprising that, when something truly worthy of acclaim comes along, it should be singularly ignored. To be fair, Dean Spanleywas well liked by critics upon its release, but its subsequent impact has proved disappointingly slight. Based on Lord Dunsany’s 1939 novella, My Talks with Dean Spanley, our narrator relates how the titular Dean’s imbibification of a moderate quantity of Imperial Tokay (“too syrupy”, is the conclusion reached by both members of the Fisk family regarding this Hungarian wine) precludes his recollection of a past life as a dog.

Inevitably, reviews pounced on the chance to reference Dean Spanley as a literal shaggy dog story, so I shall get that out of the way now. While the phrase is more than fitting, it serves to underrepresent how affecting the picture is when it has cause to be, as does any re…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989)
(SPOILERS) There’s Jaws, there’s Star Wars, and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy, to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “mainly boring”.

Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the system when Burton did it (even…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog