Movie: How To Train Your Dragon (3) : The Hidden World
Krishna
This is the third movie in the series, after How to Train Your Dragon and How To Train Your Dragon – 2
This movie created a lot of buzz when there were speculations that the Dragon series would indeed be a trilogy and not a sequence that loses its luster due to repetitive sameness (‘Like the Transformers’ said one wag). The ending of the movie seems to agree though there are many ways I can think of several ways another DreamWorks executive can ‘continue’ the series. After all, Star Wars was supposed to be a strictly six episode thing – Three sequels first and then three prequels. Look at what happened to it now!
This movie is definitely entertaining, no doubt about it. My issues with it are twofold : First, I struggle to see what is there new in this part that was not there in the first two – as in, how have they elevated it to the next level. I do not see anything. Yes, this is a different story but similar in its garb. The other issue is that I can pick a ton of holes in the story. Which is unusual for this movie. We will see more of this later but let us first look at the storyline.
We learn that Hiccup, Astrid and company have been rescuing Dragon from poachers and bringing them back into Berk. We are showing a tantalizing vision of a white dragon overlooked by them still in a cage. Berk in the meanwhile has no space for any more dragons as they are so crowded with the things that it is impossible to throw a stick without hitting three dragons.
Grimmel, the dragon hunter, meets the hapless dragon capturers and is amazed to find that Hiccup has a Night Fury (of course our toothless) as he believed that he had already slain all Night Furies in the world. His astonishment increases when they show the overlooked Dragon which is another Night Fury but white (christened Light Fury).
Hiccup’s father Stoick, in his dragon hunting days, was equally ferocious and was determined to find the legend of the hidden world of dragons. His aim was to find and destroy it so that dragons will no longer be a scourge of humans.
Now Grimmel has this brilliant idea of using Light Fury to lure Night Fury to him, so that he can destroy both at one go and finally reach his goal of exterminating Night Fury Dragons from the world. There is a brilliant scene of Grimmel coming right into Hiccup’s house, with the help of two monsterish looking dragons which are his slaves, and laughingly walk away after destroying Hiccup’s house.
Toothless continues to court Light Fury and then Hiccup makes him independent by repairing his mechanical wing with a superior wing and he also takes his people away to another island, recognizing Grimmel will come after them again. But Grimmel easily detects where they may have gone, just using logic.
The story ends beautifully, after some more confrontations between Grimmel and the Berkians, Light and Night Fury’s dazzling battle against Grimmel’s DeathGrips which are poisoned dragons under his control. And a great scene where Hiccup sacrifices himself to release Light Fury to save an unconscious and falling Night Fury.
The epilog is great to watch.
Now back to the two issues we mentioned earlier :
Yes, there is a villain, yes, he can control dragons and use them to hunt other dragons, yes, he meets his comeuppance. Is this not exactly the same story of Part II? In the Second Part, Hiccup finds a mother and here, Night Fury finds his mate. It is like watching the same story again with slight twists. Could not have the imaginative brains of the crew have come up with anything different? The hidden world is brilliant but unfortunately, too reminiscent of the underwater world in Aquaman. Again the sense of Déjà vu there.
Second: If the Light Fury was really a ‘bait’, how was she allowed to come and go? How was she allowed to take Night Fury to the hidden world? How was she never in control of Grimmel? Very confusing – all of this. What ‘control’ did Grimmel exert except almost at the end, even that to fly a very small distance on her?
It lacks even the drama of how Night Fury was induced to fight against Hiccup only to see his innate love triumph over the drugs controlling his mind, as happened in the earlier version.
Great to watch? Yes. Entertaining? Yes. Better than the first two – Unfortunately, definitely not.
6/10
– – Krishna