‘Dragon’ saga shows depth and fire
Dragons make everything better. It’s true for “Game of Thrones” and also for that family-friendly, less bloody fantasy world of “How to Train Your Dragon.”
Based on the Cressida Cowell books, the coming-of-age series closes out an excellent trilogy with the third movie “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” (in theaters now) that once and for all proves it’s the best – and fieriest – animated saga Hollywood has ever unleashed.
You may be thinking: “Wait, surely you are forgetting ‘Toy Story.’ That’s just crazy talk.” For sure, those innovative and inventive Pixar flicks, the most popular cartoons in recent years, deserve all the money they’ve made: $883.4 million so far domestically, with the highly anticipated “Toy Story 4” (out June 21) bound to boost the franchise past $1 billion. Not to mention all the merchandise, big-name voice actors and theme park rides. My 6-year-old daughter is a big fan of Buzz and Woody; she left a Gronckle dragon Happy Meal toy untouched in my car for two years. There’s probably a metaphor to be had.
Although “Toy Story,” with its themes of growing up and nostalgia, tugs on heartstrings, “How to Train Your Dragon” touches the soul. Its young Viking hero Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) and his scaly Night Fury best friend Toothless (so named because of his retractable chompers) have an unbreakable bond that gets tested in “Hidden World” as Hiccup learns the downside of leadership when he needs to move the residents of Berk while Toothless is introduced to a dragon utopia and gets a girlfriend, a white Light Fury.
The foundation of what makes these films was built in the 2010 first “Dragon.” Gangly and hapless, Hiccup is expected to be a dragon killer like his chieftain father Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), yet injures Toothless’ tail trying to show Dad his mettle, Hiccup can’t murder this magnificent creature. By being the first Viking in a few hundred years to turn his back on this ongoing war between man and beast, he changes hearts and minds as the Viking youngsters become dragon riders and tolerance comes to Berk.
Acceptance of differences is just one bigger-picture theme that the “Dragon” movies explore in subtle ways. Those with disabilities are empowered: Hiccup builds a fin to replace Toothless’ crippled tail so he can fly, and when Hiccup loses his own lower leg in battle, his bestie wraps the kid in his mighty wings and saves him from certain doom. (They now play catch with the young Viking’s prosthetic limb.)
There also is an emotional undercurrent of love and loss as Hiccup meets his long-lost mom Valka – who like her son wanted to rescue dragons rather than slaughter them – but has his father taken from him in an act of self-sacrifice in 2014’s “Dragon 2.” Romance is in the air as well, though Hiccup’s crush Astrid (America Ferrera) is just as interested in being an awesome warrior.
These films even touch on limited resources and overcrowding: While Hiccup and his people take in all the dragons they can, their island is only so big and they need to find a new haven in “Hidden World.”
Don’t sleep on the fun of “How to Train Your Dragon,” either. The dragons are all cool and colorful, Hiccup and Astrid’s friends are a nutty lot (one is named Fishlegs, for goodness sake), vicious bad guys need a good comeuppance (a nasty dragon hunter named Grimmel the Grisly, played by F. Murray Abraham) and aerial dogfights are best seen on the biggest screen you can find.
Animated franchises have given us lovably grumpy ogres, weird little banana-loving henchmen, an incredible superhero family, anthropomorphic cars, endless talking animals and, yes, the famous Pixar crew that’s plastic and fantastic. Venturing outside the toy box and into a huge-hearted fantasy, though, reveals a landscape as thrilling as a Westeros or Middle-earth that doesn’t just entertain kids but, without them realizing it, also surreptitiously offers them life lessons courtesy of a boy and his dragon.