How to Train Your Dragon 2: A Movie Review

Last weekend, for family movie night, my husband decided to take advantage of a Netflix free trial so we could watch something that we haven’t watched a thousand times already (you know, like Frozen).  (And we didn’t have a free Redbox code, so that was out of the question.)

After flipping through the kids movies for a while, we came across How to Train Your Dragon 2.  Now, I’m sure I have watched How to Train Your Dragon, but I really don’t remember anything about it.  I’m not really sure why that is, but in any case I agreed to the second movie (since the kids wanted to watch it) with this hopes that I would remember the first one.

I still don’t remember the first one.  But I can surely say that I was thrilled with the second, so now I want to see the first.  I know, I’m backwards.

If you want a fully objective review of How to Train Your Dragon 2, check out the review on FilmHamster.

But as a mom, I personally really liked this movie.  First of all, the animation is great.  It’s not like you’re watching some B rated movie where the graphics are terrible or like they came out of the 1980s.

Secondly, and this sounds really strange, but I loved the dragon, “Toothless.”  He reminds me of our dog, Coal.  I think that’s one way the producers of this movie make the dragons into loveable, relatable characters.  Many of us own and/or love dogs, and by giving the dragons dog-like qualities, we fall in love with them.

Third, I love the messages we receive from this film:

• Hiccup, played by Jay Baruchel, doesn’t know who he is at the beginning of the movie.  I think we all can identify with not knowing who were are at one time or another.  Only when he finally discovers the whole of where he came from does he understand who he is and why he is the way he is.  Sometimes we need to step back to see the bigger picture before we can really understand something.  This is true with our personal identity as well as in disagreements.  Sometimes you just have to get to the root of the problem to understand, and sometimes you’ll just have to agree to disagree, because all points are valid.
• We’re more successful when we stick by each other and support each other.  I know I’ve posted about this before, but friendships are so so valuable.  Support and encouragement takes us a long way, and we really struggle to succeed when we don’t have those supportive relationships in our lives.  We need to develop those friendships so that there is always someone there pushing us to do our best.  Likewise, we need to be the same to our friends, encouraging them to be better versions of who they are.
• Control exerted by one person doesn’t work.  Dictatorship over one person or a situation just doesn’t work.  It is only by working together as a community and for the benefit of each other that we will succeed.  When you try to control a person or a situation, you’ll always lose the things that are most valuable to you.

I’m sure there is so much more you can take out of this movie, but for the one time I saw it, I can appreciate what it spoke to me at the place I am in my life, and it’s a movie with those kinds of qualities that makes it worth watching over and over again.