Mark Reviews Movies: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 21, 2019

This is the third and almost assuredly final entry in this series, and after it grew up so quickly and so strongly in the second installment, one kind of wishes the series had continued its process of maturing, as well as its willingness to expand its world, its themes, and its imagination. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World doesn't do much that's new, but writer/director Dean DeBlois, who started the series as a co-writer/co-director and has since become the films' central creative figure, provides us with a solid send-off to this world and its inhabitants.

Maybe there's a good reason that the central plot and conflict of this third film feel so familiar. After all, there has to be a reason for a farewell between humans and dragons, and perhaps the notion that human beings are, in general, incapable of significant, widespread change is the most logical reason that there is. Prejudice, bigotry, and outright hatred of the "different" may have dissipated over the course of history, but we're still dealing with those ugly attitudes and the behaviors that come from them. As much as we assert our love for the natural world, we continue to destroy or alter it beyond recognition—even knowing that our actions might change or ruin our ability to exist within it.

Perhaps, then, it makes sense that DeBlois gives our heroes yet another villain, who again despises dragons and wants to assert his control over them, with whom to contend. These things—this intolerance, this desire to control, this impulse to destroy—are cyclical, yes, but they're also a constant throughout history. The faces of the villains, in other words, may change, but the philosophy behind their villainy remains. No matter how many villains are defeated, that way of thinking will continue.

Thinking about the film's central conflict in such a way, though, might also simply be an attempt to uncover depth where there's only routine and formula. The rest of the film, though, more than compensates for that feeling of familiarity surrounding the major conflict. Some of the side players, the human hero's fellow dragon-riders, have more to say and do here. The main dragon receives what seemed impossible before, since he was allegedly the last of his kind—a love story. The central relationship between Hiccup (voice of Jay Baruchel), now the chief of his people, and Toothless, the previously-believed-to-be last of the Night Furies, becomes richer, too, serving as a stand-in for a myriad of bonds—parent-and-child, human-and-pet, man-and-nature.

A year has passed since the end of the previous tale. Hiccup and his team of dragon-riders, including his girlfriend Astrid (voice of America Ferrera), regularly set out to rescue dragons captured by smugglers. The cliff-top village of Berk has become a sanctuary for dragons of all sorts, and the village has adapted (The dragons live in big birdhouse-like structures built above the human homes). Having Toothless, now the alpha of all dragons, is a big help.

Enter Grimmel the Grisly (voice of F. Murray Abraham), a hunter of dragons. He is responsible for Toothless being the last beast of his kind, and a group of dragon smugglers hires Grimmel to capture Toothless. For his part, Grimmel wants to finish the fatal work he started, and by chance, the smugglers have something that should help him: a female Night Fury, which Grimmel plans to use as bait.

After discovering Grimmel's intentions, Hiccup decides that, for their safety, the people and dragons of Berk need to leave their island home. Their destination is a hidden world of legend, a great waterfall near the end of the Earth and, beyond that, the original home of all dragons.

From the start, the film is heavier on action (i.e., fighting) than its predecessors, but such, one supposes, are the ways of a fantasy trilogy, founded on mythical creatures and constant threats, coming to its conclusion. Resonating more than the often frantic and chaotic battles, though, are the film's more subdued moments and drama. The mating ritual between Toothless and its white, glittery partner plays out in relative quiet, without any commentary from human spectators and with only the dragons' growls.

The heart of the story remains the relationship between Hiccup, who has become chief at the cost of feeling alone, and Toothless, who has a reason to leave the nest, as it were, for a life beyond his human friend. One of the slyer storytelling elements that the whole of the series has established arises in this evolving bond. We've come to see, if not all of the dragons, then Toothless for certain as more than a mere pet. If these creatures are, as the films have constantly argued, animals worthy of equal consideration to humans, then there must be a reckoning of sorts when the natures of humans are at odds with the very existence of dragons.

The film itself may not stand apart from or above its predecessors, but like the previous entries, the second and final sequel possesses a purity of storytelling—an old-fashioned adventure, featuring a dusky atmosphere and pristine animation. The conclusion of How to Your Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, though, is when we realize how well the whole of this story has been told. Without explaining too much, the film's epilogue is about the cathartic nature of storytelling as a means of pointing out our flaws and inspiring the best of us. It is also, though, simply a lovely sequence in which good people and beasts get what they deserve—including each other.

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