by O.Supreme » Mon Apr 15, 2019 11:08 am
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Finally saw this over the weekend. After looking forward to the epic conclusion for so long, this definitely felt lackluster. It wasn't awful by any means, but it just seemed *safe*, for lack of a better term. They checked all the boxes, but at no time did it feel like there were any high stakes. Grimmel as a villain seemed bland. They tried to build him as this brilliant strategist, and adamant Dragon Killer, unfortunately, I have to say the Television series did it much better with characters like Ryker or Crogan. Drago in the second film was definitely a more threatening villain, I was actually hoping they would continue with him, since the second film left his ending ambiguous at best. Probably the best part was Grimmel's Dragon's -Awesome design, and definitely threatening.
The kids seemed to enjoy it for the most part. When the second film came out in 2014, I guess I expected the finale to present some sort of Ultimate sacrifice -Either Toothless or Hiccup was going to have to die, and while that may have crushed a generation of kids, it would have made for a conclusion that would definitely get everyone's attention. This film had the chance to be the Transformers:The Movie of this generation, but instead, it will just go on the shelf along with all the other *decent* kids films. I give it a 7 out of 10.
Just for the record, there was a time when I held Dreamworks films in higher esteem than Pixar as far as the overall satisfaction rate and entertainment value of their animated films. Unfortunately they have fallen pretty far HTTYD was my last hope, and now that franchise is over and done with. Instead of investing in highly entertaining films from a few years ago such as Megamind or Monster vs Aliens, they've chosen to go another direction...heck I'd even take another Puss in Boots movie, but it seems that's not happening either. But I guess that's what happens when you start out as your own entity, then get bought by Paramount, then shuffled off to FOX, and now Universal. - Odd fact - All 3 HTTYD films came under the production of the three different parent companies of Dreamworks, it's the only franchise to have done this.
There are no more good TV Shows, only ones that haven't disappointed me yet.