I went in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World with high expectations. I knew this was going to be the final movie of the trilogy so reasonably I thought yeah it's going to be entertaining at least. I came out a little underwhelmed. My biggest issue with the movie is that it rehashes similar themes and scenes of the first two that it didn't impress me nearly as much. Yeah, the animation is fantastic and I love
the score by John Powell, but it just feels like a very standard sequel. How to Train Your Dragon 2 took risks and got surprisingly dark in places. This one, it focuses mostly on a pretty forgettable villain and Toothless' love interest, who is bland and nowhere near as memorable. The humour didn't work as well for me and seemed more kiddy-ish compared to the previous two. Everything felt safer and generic.
Despite all this, I never found the movie boring and still enjoyed it. I appreciate that the writers and animators have been growing up the characters as time goes by, and Hiccup and the others having to decide what to do with their Dragons and not always relying on them was a nice theme of the movie. Hiccup and Toothless interacting with each other is always a highlight, and the action sequences are well shot and colourful as expected. The last 10 minutes were great, as I really liked all the characters having a big final send-off and concluding the entire trilogy nicely. It almost got to me, honestly. I just wished the main plot was a bit more engaging and not stuff we're already seen before. On the upside, it wasn't bad at least.
6.5/10
