How to train your Dragon: the Hidden World

(★★★★✩)

NEARLY three decades later, Bart Simpson (The Simpsons) is still 10 years old. Call it “the Peter Pan effect”: a never grow-up miracle in which hand-drawn characters defy age in a way that flesh-and-blood actors find impossible. And then there’s DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon series, which has taken another path entirely, allowing its heroes – a band of misfit Vikings who’ve learned to coexist with the creatures they once feared most – to evolve as human beings, resulting in one of the greatest character arcs animation has ever seen. The Hidden World packs the emotional heft of the dozen or so years it has taken to get this far, tracking the loss of one parent, the discovery of another, and several momentous lessons in bravery and loyalty along the way. So, although Hidden World may be the third film in the series, in many ways, it’s a first: After getting the green light to continue the saga, writer-director Dean DeBlois conceived instalments two and three together, constructing a trilogy that enriches the original while also serving to entertain newcomers.

From its inception, this series has insisted on a widescreen style different from that of other animated features. Here, the visuals outdo anything we’ve seen before, to such a degree that we might almost overlook the subtler innovations in the character animation: the nuances of expression, and the wonderful nonverbal tactics the artists use to convey emotional intricacies neither Hiccup nor Toothless has had to communicate before, all of which pays off in an unforgettable final scene. –