Today’s quick review: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. For the last year, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), Astrid (America Ferrera), and the Vikings of Berk have been busy rescuing as many dragons as they can from trappers. But when Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), a dangerous dragon hunter, comes to capture Hiccup’s dragon Toothless, Hiccup leads his people on a search for the Hidden World, the ancient home of dragons, where they can live in peace.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is an animated fantasy adventure that concludes the main story arc of the series. As the number of dragons in their village swells, the residents of Berk are left with the problem of how to keep them safe from humans who want to ensalve them. The Hidden World continues the series tradition of immersive world-building, flashy action, and deft character work, making it a worthy conclusion to the trilogy.
The Hidden World builds skillfully on the foundation laid by the first two films. The characters have grown during the time since the last film, but they remain the same people. Hiccup has stepped into his father’s role as chief, and now he faces the prospect of taking the village into a new era. At the same time, he struggles to give Toothless the space he needs when his dragon falls in love with a female Night Fury.
The film also has plenty of spectacle. The graphics are another refinement on the previous entries, with better particle effects and more detailed outfits for the characters. The action is as solid as ever, with fast-paced dragon combat, rollicking melee brawls, and large-scale battles. The battle scenes themselves do not quite reach the heights of the previous film, with a slightly weaker climax, but they buttress the story very well.
The Hidden World has a few minor flaws not shared by its predecessors. The plot moves at the pace of Hiccup’s ideas, with the villagers following his lead without much argument. The film finds plenty of other conflicts to keep Hiccup busy, but the lack of pushback leads to a series of abrupt status quo changes as Hiccup tries out new ideas. The Hidden World also has more of a bittersweet tone than the previous films.
Any fans of the series should check out How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. It carries forward the strongest elements of the previous films, incorporates its own additions to the world, and serves up a satisfying conclusion to the story. How you like it compared to the other films will come down to taste, but anyone with a yearning for heartfelt fantasy adventure would do well to give it a try.
7.5 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 7.0 to 7.5 for exciting action and a fulfilling story. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2386490/