The How to Train Your Dragon movies have always held a special place in my heart. The 2010 original played a pivotal role in the development of my personal critical perspective by opening the possibilities of what 3D technology and animated children’s movies could be, but it was also one of the first movies my best friends and I ever truly bonded over our unanimous adoration of.
These are characters I love in a story that is as intelligent as it is entertaining. Despite their kid-friendly appearance, Dragons garnered a sizable cult following of millennials and twenty-somethings well past the expected age Dreamworks Animation would attempt to target. The 2014 sequel both recognized and respected that audience’s maturity in the most unexpected ways, punctuating its theme of shedding childhood naiveté in recognition of both the world’s cruel realities and one’s own shortcomings.
Now, after multiple delays since its predecessor, writer-director Dean DeBlois’ trilogy reaches its long-anticipated conclusion in How to Train Your Dragon – The Hidden World. Fans like myself can rest easy, because this latest and final installment is easily a worthy conclusion to a truly great series and simultaneously an introspection into the mettle of its central characters.
Though dressed in historical fantasy, the Dragons films succeed because they are primarily coming-of-age stories. Each respective installment is about realigning Hiccup’s (Jay Baruchel) perception of both the world and his people. First, in how he thinks about dragons and the responsibility passed down from the his father’s generation, then his own skills as a peacemaker and sudden obligations as a leader. Where the series becomes more than the sum of its parts is in how each sequel’s conflict is born out of progressing from its predecessor’s resolution. The connective tissue between the films allows time to pass and for the characters to face different conflicts than where they left off. This movie finds a reasonable starting point for its conflict and organically stems secondary and tertiary stories off of it.
Now chief of Berk following Stoick’s death, Hiccup is faced with questions and challenges that he has no quick and risk-free answer for. He is in constant doubt of his abilities to take on his father’s role as chief and protector and terrified to grow into it. But rather than confronting that inadequacy as an adult, he runs from it on more missions with Toothless and his friends, seemingly determined to stay in that childhood bliss forever. They track down hunting ships and liberate captured dragons, only to repeatedly discover how helpless they all are without their dragons’ overpowering advantage.
But that becomes a much bigger problem when Toothless discovers the last surviving member of his species, a Light Fury with a warranted distrust of humans, and instantly falls in love with her. With his village and his best friend being pulled in opposite directions, Hiccup is forced to reckon with the possibility of having to say goodbye and stand as a chief on his own two feet without the dragon that put him there.
All of which comes to a head in the form of Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), a terrifying dragon-hunter hellbent on killing the last Night Fury. His dragon-hunting quest drives Hiccup and the Berkians to abandon their island home in search of a new one where they might live with their dragons in peace. It is surprising how little the movie has to reveal about Grimmel to make him work in its favor. Drago Bludvist was a perfect antagonist in HTTYD2 thanks to his unwavering cruelty and role as foil for Hiccup, embodying what the hero could have become as a dragon-tamer had he taken a path of vengeance and anger. Grimmel achieves the same status in an ingeniously similar play by the script by making him exactly who Hiccup began the franchise hoping to be.
His intellect matches Hiccup’s, his ruthlessness mirrors his compassion, and his reliance on brain over brawn makes him equally as resilient as Hiccup is to setbacks and defeat. He lives for hunting dragons just as Hiccup lives for rescuing them. Grimmel allows both Hiccup and the audience to recognize his growth over the last nine years. It sneaks up as secondary to the film’s more prescient themes of Hiccup’s more immediate development and the rapid change in direction of his and Toothless’s lives.
But through clever visual and musical callbacks to the original Dragons, the connection to the past is established and allows the obstacle Grimmel represents to act as a foil for the edge of Hiccup’s adulthood as Drago Bludvist did for his adolescence. The similarities are jarring, as Grimmel’s entire existence is a reminder of Hiccup’s successes. No spoilers, but the biggest thing separating them is highlighted in the film’s masterstroke moment, turning that difference into an unpredictable and awe-inspiring advantage.
That is a lot to have going on in the finale of a trilogy, but The Hidden World practically pulls it off with a flourish. It occasionally feels as though there is about 15 minutes missing from the film, but it does not stop it from resolving every question and conflict it sets up.
What I love most about these movies–apart from the astonishing animation and John Powell’s incredible score–is the respect DeBlois has for his audience and characters. Conflicts are allowed to be nuanced and work outside the usual family film boundaries of extreme points of morality or success for younger viewers to comprehend. Hiccup being checked and corrected by the script does not mean he is made a fool. His first encounter with Grimmel is a perfect example, as the villain walks away with the upper hand, but the scene still shows how intelligent and cunning a leader Hiccup is. But the perils still feel real and never once lose their dramatic tension.
That is not to say, however, that the film is so focused on examining and developing its protagonist and central characters that it loses track of the heart that made it so beloved. Toothless is as adorable as ever, and his dynamic with Hiccup and their shared overcoming of disabilities is one of the entire series’ strongest attributes. That dynamic breathes life into the entire world that the series offers, and is the crucial factor in making its most important moments heartbreaking, and the movie itself into an all-out tearjerker.
The stacked supporting cast of Astrid (America Ferrera), Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Ruffnut and Tuffnut (Kristen Wiig and Justin Rupple, after TJ Miller was not asked to return), Eret (Kit Harington), Valka (Cate Blanchett) and Gobber (Craig Ferguson) all make moderate appearances. Astrid has one moment toward the end of the film that summarizes the entire journey that has brought Hiccup to this point and it comes incredibly close to stealing the entire film. Many of the others add little more to the plot than a welcome screen presence, but they keep the story moving, the dialogue fresh and the humor upbeat and jovial.
The note of finality (and all the development leading to it) often gives the sense that The Hidden World is the best of the Dragons trilogy by proxy of being the most intelligent. Though by its ending that feels less certain, the truth is, these films are so different in how they approach their characters that to rank them against each other would be a disservice to the overall series. These films do not compete with each other, they are each one act of a complete story, exploring the challenges and obligations facing the beloved teens of Berk as they make their journeys into adulthood.
Would it be wrong to call How to Train Your Dragon analogous to the Toy Story movies? Some might say so, but both carry a theme of growing up and end by saying goodbye, at least inviting the comparison. I would personally say they are better—this movie being a major factor in that judgment.
The Hidden World successfully captures the feeling of the end of an era, putting a definitive cap on its story world and leaving it drastically different from how it started. This is, in my opinion, a near-perfect trilogy, and sets a model for what animated cinematic franchises should seek to emulate. It will likely be some time before any animated story makes me feel as passionate again. In the meantime, I thank Dean DeBlois for all the passion and love he brought to making one of my all-time favorite series, and look forward to continue revisiting them until that happens.
Rating: 9/10
