Firstly, for those who came here just for the spoiler, here
it is. Stoic dies. Now, let’s move on to those who came here for the actual
review of the film.
I went to watch this film a bit late, but it was still doing
well enough in the box office to stay in theaters. I have wanted to watch this
film ever since I saw the first one. This sequel really does well in the
continuation of the storyline as well as on many other levels.
This sequel takes place years after the first movie to show
how the young main characters have grown up since the previous incidents. It
allows for the audience to see the changes in the society of Vikings,
especially with the opening scene of dragon games and everyone being well
adapted to having their own dragons. It is noticeably different from the ending
of the first film where Vikings were just slowly adapting to incorporating
dragons into their society after the time it took for Hiccup to wake up after
the battle where he lost one of his legs. This time we see a stronger
connection between the dragons and the Vikings, which comes into play
throughout the film.
The introduction of the problem of Hiccup being in
consideration to become the next chief is presented and dropped for a while
throughout the film. But that drop does well because later on, Hiccup explains
how it was something that has been on his mind throughout the entire time. The
opportunity of being chief becomes a conflict with him against his father’s ideas
as well as a conflict within himself. Because although Hiccup has grown up, it
presents the question of if he has truly matured with age. When his father dies in battle, it really
forces Hiccup to step up and become the last hope as a leader. But rather than
only as a societal force, he is also forced to take a look at himself and see
what kind of chief he wants to be. As much as I cried, Stoic’s death was
necessary for this part. By him no longer being around, it allows Hiccup to not
have the pressure of his father’s ideas and image constantly over his head so
that Hiccup can guide himself to become his own kind of chief, that is
different from his father’s legacy.
With the introduction of Hiccup’s mother, Valka, she answers
a lot of questions left behind by the previous movie. The first question was
what had happened to Hiccup’s mother. In this film we hear her narration and
flashbacks of what had happened on the night she was separated from her family
as well as her explanation as to why she never returned. It all makes for a
nice wrap up of all the questions about her past, but they were pretty
reasonable answers. Any woman and mother in her situation might have felt the
same way, given that she came from a village where she was completely alone in
her theories of treating the dragons fairly. All in the meanwhile, she was
married the Stoic, the greatest dragon slayer in their village. That could not
have been easy at all. But by introducing her stance on the dragons, it also
explained where Hiccup had naturally gotten his bond with the dragons. Valka
and her dragon, Cloudjumper’s, survival after the fight presents an important
opening for a possible third film in which they can become mentors for Hiccup
and Toothless so that Hiccup can grow to not only be better a leader, but a
wiser one as well, considering he has already learned everything about fighting
by watching his father but still lacks much knowledge on dragons.
Valka’s role also leads to an expansion of the world of
dragons. In the first film, they did a great job of introducing different types
of dragons, with the help of Hiccup’s narration and Fishlegs’ nerdy knowledge
about dragon statistics. But Valka shows us her own cave of dragons, which also
introduces more dragons as well as how dragons work within a clan. We get the
dynamic of dragons living like humans, where there is a leader, the pack, and
the children all working together with their own roles in their cave
environment. Furthermore, her role as having been with the dragons for so many
years, allows her to be the bridge to knowing more secrets about the abilities
of dragons, which aids Hiccup.
This film is semi-historical, but mostly fantasy based. In
the part of the Vikings, they got almost every detail correct, especially the
climate. However, in terms of there gear, there was one major part that was
historically inaccurate and that was the horned helmet. Vikings, and almost any
type of warrior, would never have worn a horned helmet because the horns allow
easy access for enemies to grab their helmets by the horns, drag the warrior,
and decapitate the head. The helmets that Vikings actually wore were more along
the lines of Hiccup’s helmet. Some of the weapons that were presented in the
film were obviously fictional, especially Hiccup’s fire emitting sword. But
such weapons were understandable to be added into the film because the creators
were dealing with a world of people who had pet dragons. Therefore, the Vikings
must have researched their own dragons to build weapons and gear around their
dragon research and technology.
The tone of the film was very comedic on most parts, with a
few scenes that were borderline ridiculous. There were a lot of jokes shared
among the characters, such as Astrid making fun of the way Hiccup talks, as
well as situations that simply brought laughter through visual gag, such as
when Stormfly plays fetch with the sword that Eret constantly tries to get rid
of. But there were times where the comedy seemed a bit too much, such as when
Ruffnut has her lovey dovey “hallucinations” about Eret, Snotlout, and
Fishlegs. But considering how the film’s plot surrounds childhood abandonment,
coming of age, discovery of self, war, and death, the comedic tones are very
much welcome for the target audience, who are children.
I will refrain from going too much into details of certain
other things that happened in the film because I don’t want to just tell the
entire film to everyone who have not watched it. Overall, the film was amazing.
I especially enjoyed the ending sequence where they showed the artist’s artwork
of how the mind and hand had originally imagined the scenery and characters
before technology was incorporated. I would definitely recommend this film to
be watched.
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