How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

The Good:
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World relies heavily on its captivating visual storytelling.

To say I’m a verbal person is a gross understatement. It took years for me to learn to write novels that aren’t ninety percent dialogue. To me, reality is just a bunch of free-floating conversations. My potential kidnappers could skip the blindfold and distract me with a nice long chat instead.  Within seconds, I would lose all awareness of my surroundings.

But the primarily visual storytelling in this film really works for me. That’s how I know they’re doing it exceptionally well.

Several sequences focus on the developing love story of Toothless and the female Night Fury (or Light Fury?), and, as far as I’m concerned, these are the best parts of the movie.

“I probably should have rewatched the other two movies before seeing this one,” I realized too late.

Only hazily do I remember How to Train Your Dragon 2. There’s this buff, Rasputiny, vaguely ethnic villain using a captive Alpha to brainwash and enslave dragons. Meanwhile, Cate Blanchett is also there as Valka, Hiccup’s secretly alive, dragon-training mom. Can she make Hiccup’s dreams come true by reconciling with his father after all these years? Conveniently, Stoick dies (in a particularly heartbreaking way), so she never has to address this, but she still gets to stick around as the awesome, dragon-training Viking Queen Mother.

The longer The Hidden World went on, the more and more I remembered about part 2. Since I love Cate Blanchett, I was excited to see her back and kept listening hard to make sure she really was back. (She is, but they’ve secretly replaced T.J. Miller as Tuffnut with some guy named Justin Rupple who is, actually, fantastic in the role.)

The harder I listened for Cate Blanchett, the more I noticed that while Valka has a relatively large role in the story, most of the truly important things she does are non-verbal. In fact, Valka has an entire scene (several minutes long) in which she dominates the action and accomplishes something crucial but says almost nothing (more than Robert Redford in All Is Lost, but, of course, he didn’t have a dragon to steer).

All of the strongest segments in this film are driven by image and action with a couple of notable exceptions. The story is actually a bit thin. Of the three movies, this one probably has the flimsiest premise. Still, it clearly positions itself as the dramatic final chapter of the most epic fantasy since Lord of the Rings.

Watching, I kept thinking, The original How to Train Your Dragon is a great film, but is the whole series as epic as this new movie suggests? Have we all been waiting as long and as desperately for this conclusion as How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World seems determined to make us believe? It’s an extremely effective third installment because it creates this unexpected, overpowering longing to rewatch the entire trilogy from the beginning immediately. You watch and think, “I haven’t properly appreciated this amazing epic saga.” Despite the kind of thin, slight story, this is an infinitely stronger film than How to Train Your Dragon 2.

While talking takes a backseat in the movie, Jay Baruchel does have quite a lot to say as Hiccup. He gives a legitimately fantastic performance. He’s very convincing as an emerging leader who is not quite certain what step needs to be taken next in his own life or for the good of his people. Though she has less to say, America Ferrera is also good as Astrid. Why don’t these two ever get live action leading roles this epic?

Most of the winning voice cast is back. Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kit Harrington, even Gerard Butler as Stoick (in flashbacks of Hiccup’s childhood).

This time around, the villain is voiced by F. Murray Abraham. I spent the entire movie racking by brains, trying in vain to recognize his wonderful, distinctive voice. I never could figure it out. (I’m equally unsure about whether I should rack or wrack my brains, though I’ve now read convincing defenses of each spelling.)  I could only come up with a growing string of actors I was sure it was not. (Ex.  “It’s probably not Antonio Banderas trying to sound like he’s Javier Bardem.”)  As usual, Abraham makes wonderful use of his sinister, sonorous voice. I love the way he mocks Hiccup’s onomatopoetic name.  (That adjectival form of onomatopoeia is a real word, by the way, so never let spellcheck undermine your confidence.)

Probably one of the most welcome aspects of this movie is a much enlarged part for twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut. Justin Rupple is actually mildly hilarious in several moments (especially his bizarre stab at marriage counseling). (Did they replace Miller because of his off-set scandals, or was it just a scheduling thing?)

I’ve always wondered why someone as talented and well known as Kristen Wiig doesn’t get a bigger part. This time she does, and the results are delightful.  I’m always thrilled when minor characters get enlarged roles.  In the course of three movies, we should be hearing more from these people who are always hanging around at the protagonist’s side.

Best Non-Visual Scene:

The Negatives:
The story really is pretty thin. Yet another bad guy wants to hurt the dragons. Hiccup doesn’t know if he’s ready to get married or to let Toothless go off with a new love. Not a lot is new or surprising here.

But that doesn’t matter, really. The movie very successfully contains the epic vibe, “Finally, the saga is ending. It all comes down to these final, climactic moments.”

Thanks to presentation, every frame of this film feels so significant.  Because it knows how to present itself to the audience, the movie even manages to turn its weaknesses into strengths.  Instead of thinking, “Oh man, this is happening again,” we think, “Yes, it was always thus,” as if we’re watching some extremely familiar saga so epic that we already know it deep down in our bones.