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'How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World' Is an Unusually Well-Executed Trilogy Capper

No spoilers.

By Jonathan SimPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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The Godfather Part III,Spider-Man 3, Alien 3, The Matrix Revolutions. ... These are just a few examples of third installments in trilogies that have ended up being considered worse than the first two.

And last night, I watched the first two How to Train Your Dragon films for the first time and loved both so much that I was scared about being disappointed by this final third installment. But, I watched the third one today, and well...

Here we go!

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is an animated fantasy film written and directed by Dean DeBlois. This is the final chapter in the How to Train Your Dragon film series, and it follows another adventure between Hiccup and Toothless.

This film has the citizens of Berk fleeing from their island and searching for a hidden world of dragons as a dragon hunter named Grimmel attempts to hunt down the dragons of Berk. Meanwhile, Toothless finds a "light" Fury dragon whom he falls in love with.

And what did I think of this movie? This movie was GREAT. It is the best new release of 2019 I have seen so far this year, and I genuinely loved it.

This film has a very well-written, well-told story and I actually liked the story in this film a bit more than the story in How to Train Your Dragon 2. It was so interesting and I was so invested in the characters that I wished the movie was even longer.

It also has gorgeous cinematography and animation, and it's actually really well-directed as well. There's an action sequence in the first few minutes of the film in which there was about a 30-second long take in which the "camera" moved from point A to point B without cutting.

And I watched that, and it really impressed me. I rarely ever see this much effort placed into making an animated movie look this gorgeous. This film is a work of art, and I loved it.

The ending of this movie is also just ... Perfect. I'm not gonna spoil the way it wrapped up, but I just want to say it was really wonderful seeing how much Hiccup had grown as a person ever since the beginning of the first movie.

I love seeing that. It's just really amazing to me whenever I see such a perfectly executed character arc which spanned over the course of three films.

Honestly, this movie did not disappoint at all. Usually, the third installment in a trilogy is where they begin to run out of ideas and it seems like they're only making it to make money and so that it can be a trilogy.

But I could tell from watching a movie this great that so much work was put into the characters, the story, and the directing. This is not a half-assed sequel at all. It's one of the finest trilogy cappers I've ever seen.

The voice performances are great, especially from Baruchel. Also, I had no idea that they recast T.J. Miller and replaced him with Justin Rupple. Rupple got Miller's voice spot-on. I couldn't tell the difference between their voices.

How does it compare to the first two? I think I might like the first one a tiny bit more, and I like this one a tiny bit more than the second one. But honestly, I think this might be the greatest animated trilogy of all time (Toy Story 4 comes out this summer, so it doesn't count).

What are my problems with the movie? I don't have many. I mean, it isn't as dark as How to Train Your Dragon 2, and it's more lighthearted. Also, I think Grimmel could have had a more menacing presence, and his henchmen could have been made more evil.

See what I mean? I'm grasping at straws here. This was a great movie, and it's a satisfying conclusion to the How to Train Your Dragon series. Now, I never want to see some half-assed reboot/remake/fourth movie. You got that, Dreamworks?

I'm gonna give 'How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World' an 8.9/10.

Thank you for reading. Now, I must go and do something unproductive. See you in a few days with a review for Fighting With My Family.

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About the Creator

Jonathan Sim

Film critic. Lover of Pixar, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Back to the Future, and Lord of the Rings.

For business inquiries: [email protected]

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