How To Train Your Dragon 2

1 July 2014 | 1:19 pm | Guy Davis

"It’s mostly kids’ stuff, sure, but How To Train Your Dragon 2 is generally a big-hearted, free-spirited delight."

How To Train Your Dragon was one of the most pleasant surprises of recent years, an animated fantasy-adventure brimming with heart, soul, humour and spectacle, so any sequel following in its footsteps clearly had its work cut out.

For the most part, How To Train Your Dragon 2 does an admirable job, surpassing its predecessor in some ways – especially technically, with the fluidity and expressiveness of its animation moving ahead leaps and bounds – while not quite equalling it in others.

It's been five years since young Viking Hiccup (engagingly voiced by Jay Baruchel) went against years of tradition – and the wishes of his gruff father Stoick (Gerard Butler) – by taming and then befriending a wounded little dragon he named Toothless. Since then, Hiccup's island home of Berk has become Dragon Central, man and beast living in harmony. But our hero and his scaly pal – the cutest creature this side of a Miyazaki movie – have a shared wanderlust, and their explorations bring them into contact with the evil Draco (Djimon Hounsou), who's trapping dragons to build an all-conquering army, and the mysterious Valka (Cate Blanchett), who's spent years keeping the creatures safe from harm. It's mostly kids' stuff, sure, but How To Train Your Dragon 2 is generally a big-hearted, free-spirited delight.