Review: How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

The How To Train Your Dragon franchise has surprised me no end. I think anything of the first installment during its build-up in 2010. But the ridiculously high ratings it was getting from both critics and audiences had me quite startled.
Then after seeing it, I was now joining them in their praise.

That carried on into the sequel which I felt to be slightly better then its predecessor, and we now had two of the best animated films of the decade.

So with part three being billed as a conclusion, many many people were hoping and expecting the perfect send-off.

Well for a start, it was great seeing the world of Burk and its characters and surroundings once again as we haven't seen them in 5 years.
The flight sequences are still exciting as the camera movement perfectly the portrays the experience and honestly makes you feel like you're right there.
But as the film went on, I was amazed at how much I was losing interest.
The animation is still as strong as ever, some aspects of the story was working nicely. But the overall product wasn't. Most of it just felt very generic and ordinary, especially the villain. The antagonist just felt every other one I've seen and that just lost all of its potential high stakes.
There was a romantic sub-plot that was keeping me going as well as the development of our two main characters.
Thankfully, we had a send-off that will make every fan of this franchise well up and even bawl their eyes out. It was such an emotional ending and it instantly made me forget everything I had just seen and managed to give itself a fitting finale.

But as much as I loved the emotional send-off, the film overall was sadly rather underwhelming for me.

The story is perfectly fine in its construction and execution. But it felt as if it was treading on familiar ground, re-hashing themes from its previous two and the villain was extremely forgettable. All of that just did not had me investing or caring much for the stakes. However, it was worth it up to a point for that ending that I will never forget.

Despite all that, I am grateful for these films as I still remember not expecting much from the first one and totally blown away by it as well as its sequel. One of Dreamworks most critically successful film series is now done and I hope they can re-create the magic that can at least match them as well as other successes of theirs, like the first two Shrek films.

Rating: 7/10