My Review of "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is the third movie of the popular How to Train Your Dragon series. It feels very much like the finale to conclude the series however I believe Dreamworks will probably try to milk this franchise for what it's worth with TV shows. I can't blame them it is a very family friendly franchise that seems to have legs.

This movie takes place after the second movie where Hiccup had reunited with his mother and his father had died. Hiccup and his friends are going around the world trying to free imprisoned dragons and bringing those freed dragons back to their home to live a life of freedom. The problem is that they've freed so many dragons that they're hometown of Berk can't be sustained. They're also becoming a target for enemies as everyone knows about this new dragon utopia.

To add to the things that Hiccup has to juggle is his relationship with Astrid. Everyone is asking when they're going to get married. Also, Toothless has found another night fury dragon. Toothless was thought to be the very last night fury but it turns out there's a female night fury dragon. Obviously, toothless falls madly in love with this new female dragon.

This new change of pace was a little off kilter since the other movies seemed to transition the issues organically. The marriage and female companion for toothless seemed to be added abruptly and heavy handed. Sort of like they didn't really have something to make a movie about so they just popped these ideas in there.

Just as all CGI animated movies each iteration comes with even more fantastic visuals. This movie isn't an exception. While watching this movie I sort of reminisced about how I was wowed with the first movie and the visuals in that movie pale in comparison to this newest movie. The weird thing is that I don't have that huge wow factor that I did when I saw the first two movies. It might because there are so many CGI animated movies that I may have become desensitized by all of the craziness that they might be throwing at me.

Still it is very apparent that the technological advances from the last movie and this movie are substantial. A lot of the small things like sand, fire and water just seem more realistic. Luckily this movie doesn't fall into the problem with many other CGI animated movies where the character's don't really match the realistic environments that surround them.

Hiccup's friends still keep some of their charm and characteristics that we're used to from the last two movies. The thing is that they weren't really utilized that much in this movie. They were just there to help Hiccup in fights like some sort of video game. Even Astrid wasn't that big of a role in this movie.

This movie really focuses on the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless. I'm not even sure what kind of relationship you would say this is. Is Toothless Hiccup's pet? Or is he a comrade in arms? I guess some would say pets are like part of the family. However pets aren't told to go out and live their own lives.

As the third and final movie this movie tries to send the message that we all grow up and we have to be able to leave things behind for the best of everyone. A lot of finale movies are sort of like this. I've seen this same message in the latest (I don't know if they'll ever end) Toy Story movie, Avengers, Star Wars, and other finale movies for big franchises.

The thing about these finale's is that these franchises are owned by big companies and all they care about is the all mighty dollar. There's no telling if this is actually the very end of the franchise. Still it does feel like the end as they brought nice closure to the story and really it should stop at this movie. It seems like they're starting to struggle with finding plots for new movies.

Overall, I still enjoyed this movie but not as much as I did the other two movies. It was kind of expected because it is the third and final movie. These types of movies are generally made to bring closure to fans so it's not supposed to be grandiose and spectacular. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. It's enjoyable and I'm sure fans of the movie franchise will watch it no matter what I say.