The cinema has brought us an untold number of great film series, from Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy to The Lord of the Rings. No one was really clamoring for How to Train Your Dragon, the small children's chapter book by Cressida Cowell, to turn into a film trilogy, but after eight years, it's become an unlikely emotional touchstone for Dreamworks Animation, the studio that has also inflicted upon us The Croods and Bee Movie, not to mention their juggernaut Shrek. It's tough to compete with all the Frozens and the Despicable Mes out there, but Dreamworks has quietly made one of the best children's movie series in years. It's a shame that it has to end, but what an ending it is.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World begins with reedy-voiced Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) doing his best to become a worthy chieftain of his Viking-dragon paradise of Berk. He spends his free hours with his dragon Toothless and his group of dragon-riding buddies, raiding dragon hunting boats and setting the beasts free, while also negotiating his relationship with his childhood crush, Astrid (America Ferrera). When word that Hiccup rides a legendary Night Fury makes its way to dreaded dragon-hunting mercenary Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), who first made his name for killing Night Furies. Luckily, he's managed to snatch Toothless' sparkly white female counterpart, and decides to use her to lure Toothless and Hiccup away from their home. Sensing a growing threat, Hiccup decides to attempt to relocate the people and dragons of Berk to the "Hidden World," the mythical dragon homeland his father once told him about when he was a child.
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That's a lot to take in, and there's a lot to remember from the preceding movies in order to fully understand this one. In the first movie, Hiccup repairs Toothless' maimed tail fin with a mechanical replacement of his own design, which he can control by sitting in the saddle. When he tried to give Toothless a tail he could use on his own, the dragon rejected it, preferring to stay connected with his human buddy. Like his dragon, Hiccup is also physically impaired after losing part of his leg in the first movie, and walks with a prosthetic. In How to Train Your Dragon 2, Toothless survives a battle with a "Bewilderbeast" and becomes the dragon alpha, the one all the other dragons will flock to and whose orders they'll obey. By capturing the alpha, Grimmel muses in the new movie, he can take the whole lot of them.
On the more technical side of things, the How to Train Your Dragon movies provide a fascinating look at how Dreamworks' animation department has evolved over the years. With nearly 10 years between the first and third, it's amazing to look back at How to Train Your Dragon and compare it to The Hidden World, one of the most beautifully computer-animated children's movies ever made. Everyone's hair is fuller and flowier, the dragons' scales are shinier and more pronounced, the fire looks more like real fire, and everything from grass to ocean waves is so much more tactile. Watching The Hidden World, you may feel like you can reach through the screen and touch it. There's even a riveting "one-take" fight sequence at the start of the movie in which every character is diving in and out of smoke. The only things that don't show much of a difference are all the flying scenes because those were already done so beautifully in the first movie. And, like the two that came before it, HTTYD3 also features yet another exciting, emotional, gorgeous score from John Powell.
There are also new dragons to meet, which, for anyone obsessed with creature design, is a real treat. This time around, we get one giant moose-antlered brute and a lovely purple-hued dragon modeled after an iridescent beetle. Even the dragons Grimmel uses to get around, ugly black and red tusked nightmares that chatter and spit acid, are fun to watch move around. There's one fluorescent-lit shot that makes all of the characters look like creations from James Cameron's Avatar. Toothless is as charming as ever, his pupils growing wide whenever he gets excited to play fetch with Hiccup's wooden leg. It helps that Toothless has the exact same comportment and disposition of a goofy cat. A really big cat that can hug you. He's perfect. (Full disclosure: I have a black cat.)
It's the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless, codependent but not detrimentally so, that provides the crux of the movie. When Hiccup learns that his Night Fury has a female "Light Fury" counterpart, he has to come to terms with the possibility that Toothless might choose his dragon instinct over friendship and leave him forever. Hiccup believes that without his dragon, he's not a worthy chief at all, a conviction he'll obviously need to face sooner or later. It's also important to note that it's his lack of self-confidence, and never the loss of his leg, that gives him this anxiety. As one of the very few disabled protagonists in a kids' movie (off the top of my head, I can only think of two who aren't pirates: Quasimodo and Nemo the clownfish), Hiccup makes a deep void a little bit shallower. His disability, and Toothless' mirrored impairment, are vital nuances to the story that nonetheless are never treated as burdens or barriers. It is simply a joy to watch Hiccup and Toothless grow up together and learn from each other, and while reaching the end of their journey may be bittersweet, they, and we, are richer for having taken it.
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