WesternAnimation A bewildering amount of positive reviews for a film with worse-than-mediocre writing
You could argue that the following problems aren’t that important because it’s a children-oriented story, but the first two installments were also in the same genre, and they had a much higher writing quality.
- most of the characters were either flanderised or straight out behaved like a 2-dimensional crowd of extras.
- from the main characters, many had one specific shtick to showcase and that was it. Examples: his "beard" for Tuffnut, her exaggerated stupidity and ability to annoy for Ruffnut, the "Finch-and-Stifler’s-mom" joke for Snotlout, his superstition for Gobber the Belch, etc.
- the warlord ship crew, and the Viking Island villagers didn’t behave like people. In case of former they were always easily defeated — by the end of the story their entire flotilla was defeated by less than ten people. In case of the latter, they never had much of their own opinions and quickly and easily molded to support whatever Hiccup and others wanted to do.
- the same — unfunny — jokes were used over and over. See higher for examples.
- the placing itself of the jokes was chosen poorly as well, they were often taking place in the middle of a supposedly-serious scene, which broke all the tension and made the overall plot seem irrelevant and unimportant.
- plot armor was being given and stripped away from almost all the characters (dragons, Toothless, Hiccup and his team, the warlords, Grimmel, etc) according to the design the plot was supposed to take. This made the entire story into a meaningless and inconsistent sequence of events. Grimmel was both competent enough to "sneak" into Hiccup’s house and then attack the village from inside and escape, and also incompetent enough to get his entire flotilla defeated by less than 10 people. Pretty much all the dragons were weak enough to be taken down by a single crossbow bolt. The warlords always failed in their fights against a bunch of children, even when these children didn’t have their dragons with them for support.
- There were also some especially stupid decisions that didn’t even get punished that much by the universe for their stupidity. One example being how the entire village decided to leave their well-established base (their centuries-old ancestral dwelling) just because one enemy managed to sneak in and burn some buildings (wooden ones at that, in a village full of dragons); and also made that decision based on some unconfirmed tale without even sending some people out first for investigating it and finding the location of the supposed haven.
My rating is 6/10.
WesternAnimation Great Film.
WARNING: SPOILERS!
Having watched the third and final film of the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy I was not disappointed. It is a great film, and the trilogy is one of the best animated trilogies ever.
The writing was great, with a perfect ending to the trilogy. This film did make me cry at the end when the dragons left and went to the Hidden World.
The animation was breathtaking and blew the animation of the previous two films of this franchise out of the water.
The music was great as well for this film as it has been for all three films of the trilogy.
I loved seeing Hiccstrid continuing to be well written and believable. It was great to see Astrid be Hiccup's support. It was also great that Valka told Astrid that Hiccup didn't realize the strength he and Astrid have together and that Hiccup didn't need to rule alone like his father did. It shows that Valka knows full well about how strong Hiccup and Astrid's relationship is. I loved the moment between Hiccup and Astrid where they were gazing at each other lovingly, and while doing so Astrid took a canister of Zippleback gas and threw it at the enemy followed by Hiccup throwing his sword to ignite the gas in the canister. The way they fought the enemy together was awesome. I also loved seeing Astrid push Hiccup out of the way of a shot fired at him while also making sure to avoid the shot as well at one point in the film. Favorite Hiccstrid scene of course was the Wedding at the end. Was happy to be able to see Hiccup and Astrid get married and become Chief and Chieftess. I also loved that the film right after did a ten year time skip and showed Hiccup and Astrid and their two kids Zephyr (daughter), and Nuffink (son) sailing to the entrance of the hidden world giving Hiccup and Astrid's two kids a chance to interact with a dragon. In the end I was glad to see Hiccup and Astrid's relationship be developed more and for them to get to the farthest point possible on the relationship arc that being married with two kids.
Also, the ending monologue for Hiccup was great as well.
Lastly, this film did a good job at getting its message across of learning to let go, knowing that all good things must come to an end. It also did a great job to make it so Hiccup could be his own person without his dragon Toothless.
I highly recommend watching this film. I would also recommend having seen the first two films before watching the third film if possible. I would also recommend seeing it in theaters to best experience the gorgeous animation and visuals.
Overall I give this film a 10/10.
WesternAnimation Eeeeeh
"How to Train Your Dragon" series are one of best Dream Works movies, maybe even the best if you look for something more than comedy (sorry Prince of Egypt).
The first movie had a predictable plot and somewhat confusing main villain but more than made up for it with very likable protagonists, attention to details, imagination, great pacing and of course beautiful animation. The second movie had an equal amount of ups and downs: more emotional and more epic in size, but the plot felt less polished, the main arc is vague and large side-cast struggles to find something to do, especially by the second half.
And the third... is still okay, but clearly the weakest movie. I feel like they NEEDED to make this trilogy, but lacked any ideas what to do for the final movie.
New dragon-riding technology? None, at least nothing comparable to upgrades between 1st and 2nd film. White female dragon? Nowhere near as cute or interesting as Toothless. Confusingly hostile, compared to every other dragon. This "hidden world"? We spend 5 minutes in it and leave. Meh New villain? Has class, but lacks the scale or unique abilities. Honestly, Hiccup could beat him with a sheer number of his dragons. Side Cast? Even more shoe-horned than last time. Only Astrid needs to be in this movie. Main arc? (Vague Spoilers) Letting go, which I already have seen better in Toy Story 3 or Wreck-it Ralph 2, and frankly, the movie doesn't give a satisfying explanation of why this sad ending is needed. For me, it felt like giving up to Racial Segregation.
So while I wouldn't call it a bad movie, dozen little niggle stopped me from liking it as much as the other two. It just lacks any fleshed-out ideas other than "let's end on bitter-sweet separation".