by Jack Gillespie Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Very few film franchises of this decade, whether they be live action or animated, can compare to How to Train Your Dragon when it comes to sheer quality. The first two films in the series not only rank as some of the best films to come from DreamWorks Animation, but they single handedly gave the studio the credibility they desperately needed at that point in their existence. After a string of hit-or-miss, but mostly miss (Shrek the Third, Monsters vs. Aliens, Bee Movie) releases in the mid-2000s, How to Train Your Dragon was a breath of fresh air to kick off the decade. The film was not only one of the most visually stunning CGI-animated films to date, but it brought a great balance of family-friendly fun and darker, more emotionally grounded drama. The fact that the protagonist, Hiccup, (Jay Baruchel) loses his leg at the end of the film, something that just can’t be fixed, shows that, proves that How to Train Your Dragon was willing to do things very few mainstream animated films would. When the sequel took all the best aspects of the original and only improved and elevated them, something a great sequel is supposed to do, it solidified the series as something truly special. So How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World had quite the feat to accomplish: following up the best film Dreamworks has made in a long time while also wrapping up the most consistently stunning series the studio has ever had. https://youtu.be/SkcucKDrbOI
An absolute joy to the eyes
A weak ending concludes the trilogy with a disappointingly flat note
IMDb
