Berk's Forumvine

Now, that I have finally seen the movie it is time to share my thoughts about it.
Why I need an extra thread for that you will ask? Because I have many many things to say which I will write down in the next couple of days.

I apologize in advance for misspellings, grammar and bad English.



I will start with an impartial review of the movie in my patented 3-way-review-style (completely spoiler-free!):


How To Train Your Dragon 2


Positive:
+ + a Story beyond comparison
+ + breathtaking action scenes
+ + so far the best animations of ALL movies
+ + extremely visually stunning (should be on an ~ 300sqm Screen)
+ entertaining and well-placed comedy
+ many emotional scenes
+ beautiful score
+ made for 3D
+ full use of the PG rating
+ perfect duration
+ Dragons, Dragons and more Dragons



Negative:
-some small plot holes/inconsistencies
-The intensity of the presentation of the key scenes not reached the level of the first part
-Too much information in advance by Trailer / Clips / Advertising / Spoiler



Conclusion:
No matter how hard you mentally prepared for this movie, no matter what you've seen, you is not prepared for what awaits you in the cinema. Director Dean DeBlois said at the beginning that he wanted to create a new "The Empire Strikes Back" with the second part of his epic trilogy and he has more than succeeded. Even with a PG rating, which really needs to be a hair's breadth on the border to the next higher, it has been able to create an action-packed fantasy adventure that has no equal.
Absolutely every scene couldn't been more perfect. The action in conjunction with the camera movements is sometimes so intense that dizziness cannot be avoided. Unlike the most animated movies which have serious amounts in the story, the comedy here is not used to ease the atmosphere, it is only used in a few scenes, but in these it fits almost perfectly to the atmosphere of the film and never looks overdone.
But the main focus of the film is on the extremely intense emotional scenes, and there are many. In conjunction with the score from John Powell, which is this time even more dominated by soft strings, female choirs and a wide range of Nordic instruments, it wells every one tears in the eyes.
Of course, one could make the argument that these scenes might have been longer or more of them, but to that I can only disagree. A length of ~ 90 minutes + credits is entirely sufficient for this kind of story, a stretch of the scenes here is unnecessary and the ongoing tension would be decreased.
In order to bring the whole thing to conclude, a few words about the technical aspects. With a whole range of new software and hardware DreamWorks has taken on this project: PREMO, Light, Apollo and many others can be named here. Thus, this movie has conveyed to the technically best animated film in history and will be the reference for several years. Absolutely nothing shown so far comes even close to the level of the movie. This is especially true for the character animation, which set new standards like the first movie before it and has now been significantly improved even more. In many films, the main focus is usually placed only on the main characters, not so here. The rich variety of dragon-types, as well as human characters and their amount of detail is remarkable. Each of the places shown is simply fantastic and the new designed Berk looks extremely realistic with the fantastic lighting.
In summary, I can say that this movie, despite the rather mediocre start at the American box office, rank among the bests of Hollywood and has earned its place next to "Star Wars V”. "How To Train Your Dragon 2" represents a whole new level of animated movies.


Here again everything in points:



Story: 11/10
Characters: 11/10
Comedy: 10/10
Tension: 11/10
Action: 11/10
Score: 10/10

Overall impression of Story: 11/10



Screenshots: 11/10
Camera operator: 11/10
Character Animation: 11/10
Details: 11/10
Lighting: 11/10
3D: 11/10

Overall impression of optical References: 11/10



Sound Quality: 10/10
Dialogs / Comprehensibility: 9/10
Sound Effects/Design: 9/10
Sound Mixing: 10/10
Music: 10/10

Overall impression of audible References: 10/10
rated in the direct sweet spot of an IMAX cinema



Thus, the film has the highest overall rating that I have ever given a movie and it deserves it. It also reminded me again about why I'm a fan.

Wow! That was very well said. I agreed with pretty much everything you wrote.

draco

07 Jul 2014, 21:58

Wow! That was very well said. I agreed with pretty much everything you wrote.

Yep. After seeing the movie I really wish I hadn't watched all those clips

The only clips I've seen are the the Teaser, both Trailers and the Itchy Armpit clip.

Basically entirely agree with you, with a couple of (very) minor quibbles:

-some of the comedy was a bit lame. Particularly Snotlout and Tuffnut, who just weren't given funny lines.

-I didn't mind all the trailed clips. Seeing them on the big screen in 3D, rather than on my laptop, still felt like seeing them for the first time. Plus there was so much story left in the full movie that I didn't feel I'd had anything spoiled. Actually the story was so tight that it all only really clicked together on my 2nd viewing (yeah I'm pretty slow ).

doeslingx

07 Jul 2014, 23:20

-I didn't mind all the trailed clips. Seeing them on the big screen in 3D, rather than on my laptop, still felt like seeing them for the first time. Plus there was so much story left in the full movie that I didn't feel I'd had anything spoiled. Actually the story was so tight that it all only really clicked together on my 2nd viewing (yeah I'm pretty slow ).

It took me til the 3rd viewing for me to fully absorb everything in the whole movie...

Rocky Rose

07 Jul 2014, 23:33

doeslingx

07 Jul 2014, 23:20

-I didn't mind all the trailed clips. Seeing them on the big screen in 3D, rather than on my laptop, still felt like seeing them for the first time. Plus there was so much story left in the full movie that I didn't feel I'd had anything spoiled. Actually the story was so tight that it all only really clicked together on my 2nd viewing (yeah I'm pretty slow ).

It took me til the 3rd viewing for me to fully absorb everything in the whole movie...

I'm actually still not entirely sure what was going on with the traps in the Battle of the Bewilderbeast. Why were dragons suddenly able to spring out of them?

4th viewing required!

In hindsight, the teaser clips didn't bug me. And I think this is partially because they were just that confident that there would be tons more to keep us engaged and surprised. (And they were right!)

I stopped paying attention to this review the instant you gave any aspect of this movie (and to be fair, this would apply to any other movie) a score of 11/10. That is impossible by definition.

Cartoon Freak

09 Jul 2014, 00:09

I stopped paying attention to this review the instant you gave any aspect of this movie (and to be fair, this would apply to any other movie) a score of 11/10. That is impossible by definition.

Don't be rude. Let people have their own opinions.