Prepare yourselves, this is a long one. I spent too much time thinking about a kid's movie.
I'm going to be honest, I don't understand the love for this movie. I know I've given it a high rating, but that's because this entire trilogy means a lot to me personally. However, this is easily the weakest film in the trilogy for me. The story never really gets to hit its stride the way it does in the first because there are too many plot significant events happening at the same time. This makes the themes and messages of the movie weak at best and contradictory at worst.

Drago is an interesting villain in concept, being a character that Hiccup will not be able to change, but in practice it just made him a generic Sir Villain McBadguy with nothing interesting about him other than his intimidating screams that somehow manage to [spoiler] control even Leviathan class dragons [/spoiler].

Toothless. Look how they massacred my boy. The intelligent, curious creature I fell in love with has been replaced with a cute mascot with no personality of his own save for like 2 four second scenes. He acts in such a goofy, doglike manner all the time that it made 14 year old me (at the time) cringe. He's domesticated, I get that, but even when he [spoiler] KILLS HIS FRIEND'S FATHER [/spoiler] there is no introspection on his part. Just Hiccup telling him it wasn't his fault and moving on like nothing happened. Why was it Toothless who did it if the writers weren't going to do anything with it? Luckily they returned him to form later in the third movie but that does not rectify the issues here.

[spoiler] Meanwhile we have the whole thing with Hiccup's parents, and I for the life of me cannot understand the purpose of Hiccup's mother. She does not aid in Hiccup's character development at all. She basically acts as an explanation as to why Hiccup is the way he is (which no one asked for) and someone Hiccup can relate to when he's separated from everyone else. The most significant function she serves is to made Stoik's death more impactful, as he finds his love again as a changed person only to die quickly afterward. Not that that's emphasized, this movie can't choose a character to focus on and as a result I can't feel for any of them.

So, let's talk about Hiccup. Hiccup's character arc in summary goes as follows: "I like exploring and don't want to be chief, I want to be a peacekeeper." Later: "Man, the world does not want me to be a peacekeeper or explorer, better do what my parents want me to and just protect my own." This is even expanded upon in the third movie when he has to abandon all the dragons for the sake of not being hunted all the time. I like the idea of him having to accept that's he's going to be Chief, but I think breaking all of his ideals is a bit much, although potentially realistic in a sense. [/spoiler]

TL;DR: Not great but still a solid movie.

After the first part of "How to Train your Dragon" introduced us into a new world where vikings where fighting with dragons for their existence, where our two unequal outsiders managed to form a team that finally united dragons and vikings, in the second part of the series we revisit the viking village which of course has changed a lot. Instead of playing amusing sports with sheep and fighting against dragons, our vikings now ride dragons to play new and more exciting amusing sports with sheep.

Different to the first movie that had it's entire focus on the main story, this movie however opens a number of side stories: A father-son conflict between Hickup and Stoick, Hickups search for his identity, how to cope with new family members, as well as questioning deep friendships. We get happy moments, but also really dramatic and sad moments, experience a lot of rage as well as loss and grief. And all these things are just side elements to a typical action adventure story, where we have a main enemy - Drago - who is threatening the peaceful cohabitation of our dragons and vikings.

This movie will surprise you with topics that you wouldn't expect an "children's animation movie" to have, and to me, even the finale was pretty surprising, and also pretty touching.

Additionally this movie has a great soundtrack that goes right into your ear from the first minute, and compared to the first movie, the animations got even better, and the humor is a bit more mature that it was - as is our Toothless-riding Hickup.

It's a really good movie, a must see!

If you loved the first How to Train Your Dragon, you'll absolutely love this movie. If you are a frequent user of Tumblr, you'll want to capture SO many moments in .gif format. If you've never seen the first movie, you'll still love this movie, or at least, like it.

Essentially, this movie is great. It has all that a child could desire in a film (trust me, the kids in the theatre LOVED it - it was super cute) and it also had some absolutely hilarious moments for the adults. The plot is pretty good; even if it is predictable, it's predictable in a way that works. The animation is gorgeous. The voicework is awesome. The way all of the characters have grown over the 5 year gap between the two movies in the series was really well done and evident, not just in appearance, but also in their personalities and interactions with each other.

In any case it was a lot of fun! Go watch it, even if you don't have kids.

Like I said a couple of year ago during 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2' review, it's a terrible title for a sequel. The host, Neil Patrick also said the same thing during the 2015 Oscars. But in the digital world, slight change in the title makes random in order. I mean on the computer and web world, it won't show in order. Even sometime it might get lost in a vast number of other titles if they dare to chance the first word in the title for a sequel. Other than that they are not stupid as many people think. That's why they highlighted 'Dragon' boldly than the rest of the words.

This part two was not much different to its first. The story continues five years after Hiccup recovers from his injury. He and his pet, Toothless discovers a new land during the survey for the map. So their's adventure begins, but end in a trouble and forces all his people from the town to involve and fight against the rising evil force that tries to conquer them all.

Like I always say, those days are gone, now animated movies are for all ages. This was a very nicely and carefully written screenplay, did not fail to deliver. Very close to the impact the first movie made, but due to simplicity it stayed a couple of steps behind. Developed well with a bit of suspense, thrill and entertainment. Nothing more we could have asked, a perfect follow-up and hoping to explore beyond lot more in the upcoming movies in this series. Four years gap between the movies is a nice idea and fine breathing space for this franchise fan. A movie must be seen by animation fans, especially if you have already seen the first then don't miss it.

8/10

The first one was good and the second is not any worse.

This series is standing out of the pack for its complex plot involving several topics, not just the typical ones in an animated movie. Arguably, they have been also treated in former movies; two main characters which are crippled (Finding Nemo ...), greater involvement of strong female roles (although, still, not as main characters and utterly in need of help from the male roles), ecology, etc.

The points I dislike the most is the speech of homeland being the good "peacekeeper" nation forced to use violence to keep it (peace). Quite hypocritical but, clearly, addressed to the US audience.

The repetitive line of story about the (nerd) hero who is the only one to save the world is quite tiresome too.

Finally, how lightly some other traumatic causing topics are treated: finding that a parent abandoned their child, death, etc ...

In any case, this is a good movie, funny and with an interesting story. Worth watching for a franchise that, I think, doesn't have all the attention it should have.