How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

“There were dragons, when I was a boy.”

Filmology Rating: 3 out of 4

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is currently the only thing keeping Gerard Butler's career afloat and stars many voice actors, most prominently, Jay Baruchel who voices Hiccup. The last film I saw him in was The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Nic Cage in 2010.

This film is about Hiccup learning to be a leader while Toothless tries to get a girlfriend who is also a rare breed. Also, Count Von Count from Sesame Street is trying to hunt down and kill dragons because he is the evil man the writer wrote for this film.

Honestly, I have not seen the other ones because I really do not care. And not seeing the other one really lends a different perspective. And you know what? I just love going into a film knowing exactly how it will end from the first minute of the film. So the only way to make up for that predictably is to have an interesting journey to that end point. And I found the middle very muddled. It's a lot of going from place to place and evil man is hunting them down all while Toothless going on a date. The fact that I found most of the film uninteresting is because I have no prior emotional attachment to these characters. And because I know that a kid's movie will end with happy rainbows, there felt like no tension at all.

That is not to say the film is bad. The script is well written and the animation looks great which is needless to say nowadays because all animation looks good. All major characters have something to do in the story and it ends well.

The villain is also the most white-cracker, generic evil-man ever. It was like Nosferatu and Count Von Count had a child.

Everything this film sets up earlier is paid off so easily later on. It's like if I played Tetris, but I don't have to do anything to make the pieces fall into the right place. So I just sit there.

I understand that many people may really love the film. It has a wonderful ending that will please lots of people, but it did not appeal to me. Everyone has different tastes and that's not to say you or I are wrong.

Rating: Rent It

-Nolan