3.5 stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for fantasy action and mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.13.14
Catching dragon-discharged
lightning in a bottle is hard enough just once; expecting to replicate such a
feat is darn near impossible.
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| Although Hiccup's father wants him to assume the role of village chief, the young Viking would much rather explore distant lands astride his beloved dragon, Toothless. Unfortunately, one of those journeys reveals a very, very nasty villain who'd love to destroy Hiccup and everybody else in his village. |
2010’s How to Train Your Dragon was, to my taste, a perfect film: a clever and luxurious expansion of the first
of Cressida Cowell’s series of children’s novels, with an engaging blend of well
structured characters, rich vocal talent and — most crucially — a plot that
focused quietly on a boy and his rather unusual “dog,” then built to a
suspenseful, exciting and unexpectedly poignant conclusion.
One could not help being touched,
as well, by the authentic behavior granted Toothless, our young hero’s rare
Night Fury dragon: the ever-watchful gaze, the playful curiosity, the
protective instincts and the pet-like eagerness to please. The animators did a
rare and wondrous thing, by concocting an animated creature — and a mythical
one, at that — far more lifelike than any others brought to the big screen,
dating all the way back to the gentle woodland critters of 1937’s Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs.
All of which gave
director/scripter Dean DeBlois very large reptilian shoes to fill, with this
long-awaited sequel.
We can be saddened, then —
although likely not surprised — that Dragon 2 doesn’t live up to its
predecessor. DeBlois screwed up the formula, and he has nobody to blame but
himself.
1992’s Home Alone 2 remains the
textbook case of ill-advised sophomore slump. In an astonishing example of
short-sightedness, everybody assumed that the key to success lay in enhancing the
slapstick nonsense involving the “wet bandits” who bedeviled little Kevin
McCallister, thereby overlooking all the poignant, gently tender kid-on-his-own
moments that made the original’s high-comedy final act so funny in contrast.
The sequel, essentially nothing but burlesque, fell completely flat.
Successful tone and pacing derive
from highs and lows: a balance between the many, many elements that combine to
produce an engaging narrative. As my grandmother often warned, not even ice
cream sundaes could withstand becoming a steady diet; all too quickly, they’d
become bland. And even, well, boring.
That’s more or less what has
happened, with Dragon 2. As for why, I’m always suspicious when a filmmaker’s
colleagues get jettisoned en route to a sequel. On the first Dragon, DeBlois
shared directing and scripting credit with Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, The Croods), with additional writing assists from William Davies and Adam F.
Goldberg. Collaboratively, they fashioned a heartwarming tale that was long on
interactions between our misfit Viking hero, Hiccup, and his gruff father,
Stoick; along with Hiccup’s unlikely attraction to young Viking goddess Astrid;
and of course the highs and lows that accompanied Hiccup’s efforts to win the
trust of the wild, wounded Toothless.
Then, and only then, did that
first film pull out all the stops for its exciting third act.
