Third Time Pays for All

Film: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Format: Blu-ray from Sycamore Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I went into How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (hereafter shortened to just The Hidden World) cautiously hopeful. I love the first movie, and the second one, while not quite as good, holds up pretty well. But trilogies often fail in their third iteration and, despite all best efforts, end up concluding the series on a down note. I had hopes, though. After all, the Toy Story films remained consistently good, and even the unnecessary fourth movie was better than it had any right to be.

The truth is that The Hidden World is probably the weakest of the three Dragon films, but that’s not saying a great deal. While the story does feel like a step down in terms of quality, it’s not a big step down, and it’s coming from a very lofty place. It also benefits hugely from several very important realities of the series. First, we know from the first two films that this series is absolutely willing to have real, significant consequences for its characters. No one is every really safe or invulnerable. Second, it has Toothless, who is one of the truly great animated characters of the current century.

A Little Hiccup

Film: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on The Nook.

I won’t pretend like I wasn’t interested in watching How to Train Your Dragon 2. I was curious as to where the story would go after the first film. It had a good, solid base to build on; the first film is smart, funny, and had a great sense of adventure. It is one of those great kid-oriented films that manages to be just as entertaining for adults and for the same reasons. Additionally, the original film does a few things differently from the typical animated kids’ film and does those things really well. The question, then, is if the sequel holds up.

We’re back to the village of Berk, which has become a haven for dragons in the five years that have passed since the first film. Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), the savior of the town in the first film is essentially running away from his duties as chief-designate by his father, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler). Stoick wants to turn the reins of power over to Hiccup, who doesn’t want them. And again, in a piece of smart writing, this isn’t an irresponsibility thing or a function of Hiccup’s constant exploring of new lands. It’s that he doesn’t think he has the qualities his father does as a leader and that he won’t be able to handle the job the way his father does.

Owner's Manual Not Included

Film: How to Train Your Dragon
Format: Streaming video from Amazon on rockin’ flatscreen.

Movies made for kids have a few basic formulas. The most common of this is a kid or small group of kids (or alternatively something kid-like) who are misfits from their society who then discover something important and through a variety of trials end up changing their society. Done well, you get Ratatouille. Done less well, you get A Bug’s Life. Really, the formula itself is set; the quality of the movie comes almost exclusively from how well the elements are created and meshed together. Tack on a good story and smart performances, and you might have something great. This is the formula for How to Train Your Dragon, meaning that the question that needs to be answered isn’t specifically how the story will turn out, but how good is the journey to that ending.

I’m going to start with my complaints because I really want to spend the bulk of this talking about just how much this film gets right. In the complaint department, I have only one real thing to talk about: the characters’ accents. How to Train Your Dragon takes place in a Viking village. Who decided that Vikings should sound like they’re from Scotland? If we’re looking for some cultural touchstone, they should sound closer to the Swedish Chef. I suppose that no one would take them seriously if they were running around saying, “Hingy dingy horsky dorp dorp dorp,” but that’s not an excuse to have them sound like a gang of Glaswegians. And beyond that, it’s the adults who sound like they should be wearing kilts; the kids all sound like they’re from Iowa.

Lilo & Stitch

Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

People talk about the Disney renaissance as starting with Tangled or with Frozen. Nobody mentions Lilo & Stitch despite its solid reviews, direct-to-video sequel and television series. This is a Disney film I missed, and if I’m honest about it, it’s one that I didn’t really relish watching tonight. I’ll put this as nicely as I can: I hate the art. I don’t mean that I dislike that it’s different than the traditional Disney style. I mean that I think it’s weird looking and kind of ugly. I find it vaguely disturbing that Lilo apparently doesn’t have teeth. Everyone is oddly blocky and bulbous. It bothers me on an aesthetic level. Regardless of whether I like the story or not, Lilo & Stitch starts with a large strike against it.

We start at a galactic council where a scientist named Jumba Jookiba (voiced by David Ogden Stiers using a thick Russian accent) is on trial for illegal genetic experimentation. He has created something he calls Experiment 626, which we’ll soon be calling Stitch (Chris Sanders). 626 has been designed to be wholly and completely destructive. The experiment is slated for marooning on an asteroid, but naturally escapes, steals a police cruiser and hyperspaces to Earth. He crash lands on Kauai. Jookiba and Earth “expert” Pleakley (Kevin McDonald) are sent to recover 626 so that he doesn’t destroy the planet, which has been labelled a wildlife preserve as a way to protect the galaxy’s endangered mosquito population.