Monday, August 5, 2013

Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) Part 2:

Warning: Naughty language, kids.

Previously: Hiccup is lame, his dad doesn’t listen, he catches a Toothless, he can fly, he’s cool, his girl is coming around, he was too good, he found a nest, he needs a plan.
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Music is still 9/10 dragons.

The next day, the ships arrive back at Berk all damaged with the Vikings unsuccessful in their attempt to find the nest. Stoick is grumpy (nothing new) but when he’s on the docks everyone is like: “No one will miss that old nuisance,” and: “Everyone is so relieved.” So naturally he assumes Hiccup is fucking dead. What the fuck? I am simultaneously sad and angry. But Gobber sets him straight by telling him that he is amazing at training and Stoick is confused.
          
            The next scene is my favorite; the flying scene. Hiccup and Toothless are trying out their system for real; like “balls to the wall, if this fails we die” kind of shit. Predictably, it’s rough at first but then they almost die and it changes everything. Hiccup just goes with it and masterfully maneuvers them away from death. He had a cheat sheet for the pedal controls but you know what they say about cheaters; they always fall to their deaths with their crippled dragons. He made a good choice by throwing it away. This is just a good, fun scene that has my favorite song of the movie in it.
            
            The duo takes a lunch break on an anonymous island and the Terrible Terrors are cute little shits and Hiccup is like: “Everything we know about dragons is wrong.”  Toothless is like: “Fuck these fucking rats trying to steal my food.”
            
            Back at home, Stoick tries to talk to Hiccup and for a minute Hiccup thinks he knows about Toothless but he’s talking about training. He was so obvious; he needs to work on his poker face. But Stoick is pumped that Hiccup is doing well and he can’t wait for Hiccup to kill stuff. But Hiccup isn’t actually winning the “normal” way so while Stoick thinks they can talk, they can’t.

            There’s an awkward silence that I cringed at but Stoick broke it by giving Hiccup a Viking hat which is half of his mom’s breast plate, his dad’s hat has the other. It’s a nice gesture, but have you looked at the both hats? Hiccup’s hat is big and round and Stoick’s is…small and pointy. Proportion? What proportion? Who needs that? Boobs don’t.

The next training session is in front of the entire village, since all of the villagers have returned. It’s against a Gronckle and Astrid is determined as shit to win but unfortunately for her Hiccup ends up bringing the dragon down. It’s unfortunate for Hiccup too because the village elder decides that Hiccup has won the chance to fight the dragon, in front of everyone. Astrid wants to cut a bitch and Hiccup decides that it’s time to run away with Toothless. But this time Astrid managed to follow him and she discovers Toothless.

They don’t like each other. I think they’re jealous of each other. She runs off but they catch her and basically force her to take a ride on Toothless. The ride is scary at first because Toothless is mad at her for trying to steal Hiccup’s attention, but she apologizes and bam, friendship. The ride gets nice and they show her how awesome flying is. She even wraps her arms around Hiccup and he’s totally gets a boner.

Cool time skip. Their ride has lasted for a long time, but it’s just as pretty at night time. But then Toothless acts weird and suddenly they end up in a dragon swarm. Every dragon is carrying food of some kind. They fly to the dragon nest and we see the dragons dropping food into a giant pit which holds a giant ass dragon called the Red Death. The other dragons are like slaves to it. Now we know why the dragons raid villages, either they bring back food, or they get eaten themselves.
           
            They escape the nest and get back to the Berk. Astrid wants to tell Stoick they found the nest but Hiccup won’t let her. He knows they would kill Toothless. She seems a bit disbelieving at first but she agrees to give Hiccup time to come up with a plan. But before she leaves, Astrid punches Hiccup and then follows up with a kiss on the cheek. Can you feel it? Love is blossoming. Can you feel it, Mr. Krabs?
            
             The next day is dragon killing day. His dad starts of the festivities by giving a speech about how it’s crazy that Hiccup went from being the worst Viking ever to placing first at dragon training. Real nice, dude. Hiccup wants to try to put an end to the killing but he knows how his life is so he makes Astrid promise to take care of Toothless if something happens to him. Astrid tries to make him promise that things won’t go wrong but he doesn’t get to say it. An automatic fail is on the horizon.

A Monstrous Nightmare bursts from its cage, on fire, and ready to eat some Viking. But Hiccup surprises everyone, including the dragon, by dropping his weapons, causing everyone to freak out. Hiccup is literally two seconds away showing how dragons and Vikings can be nice to each other it when his dad fucks it up. He yells: “STOP THE FIGHT! BLARGH I’M GERARD BUTLER!” Then he hits his hammer on the cage, making a loud noise and freaking the dragon out.

The dragon goes after Hiccup so he screams like any person would when facing off against a dragon trying to eat you. But Toothless hears it all the way from the ravine thing and he claws his way out of it and runs to save his BFF. Toothless does save Hiccup by beating the shit out of the Nightmare, but predictably, before Toothless can get out of there the Vikings attack him. He almost blasts Stoick to hell but Hiccup makes him stop, resulting it the other managing to subdue Toothless. It was really sad, but foreseeable. Toothless saving Hiccup still gives me feelings.
            
            Stoick is fucking pissed. The father and son have an argument that ends with Stoick declaring that Hiccup isn’t his son anymore. That’s fucking harsh, Butler. It’s even harsher when Hiccup accidentally reveals that he was at the nest and that Toothless was the one to find it and Stoick decides to use Toothless to find it again. When Stoick walks away we see some regret on his face for a second but then he’s like: “Go away regret, ain’t nobody got time for that.” It was nice to see the regret though. We see that he does love his kid but it sucks because he’s too mad and prideful to apologize. So everything has gone to shit because Toothless is a prisoner and Stoick is mad at Hiccup and going off to fight a dragon he can’t beat.
            
            Hiccup watches as the Viking and Toothless set sail for Helheim’s Gate (that’s what the fog bank of doom is called). Astrid finds him and they chat about why Hiccup didn’t kill Toothless and, through some self-discovery, Hiccup realizes it’s because he saw himself when he looked at Toothless. This motivates Hiccup to do more stupid and crazy shit that Astrid is attracted to.
            
            The ships make it to the island using Toothless and his dragon senses. It’s creepy because the island is noisy with dragon chatter but once Stoick touches the land, it gets silent. Toothless isn’t happy about being there.
           
            In the training arena, the cool kids show up to help Hiccup and Astrid. What they don’t know is that the plan is riding dragons. Conveniently, there is one captured dragon for each kid. Except the twins, but they share the two-headed Zippleback. It’s fitting.
           
            Back on the island the Viking are ready for battle. They use catapults to break open the mountain but nothing happens. It’s just a dark hole. But when they shoot a fire rock into the hole all you see are dragons lining the walls. They attacks but the dragons just fly away. The Vikings think they have victory but Toothless is still freaking out. Stoick sees and tries to regroup but it’s too late. The Red Death busts out of the mountain and everyone runs. They try to get to the ships but the dragon sets them on fire, with Toothless still on board.

The Vikings think they are screwed until the gang arrives, riding the dragons. Needless to say, people are shocked. Fishlegs educates us, I mean them, about the dragon and they use the knowledge to make a plan. Well Hiccup does, but still, yeah teamwork. Hiccup finds Toothless and tries to free him but the boat sinks. At this point I was throwing my hands up at Hiccup’s shitty luck. Hiccup almost drowns but Stoick pulls him out of the water and saves Toothless himself. Dad and son make up, making me cry a little, then Hiccup and Toothless go off to be awesome.

Once they arrive to the fight, everyone else gets out of the way because Hiccup and Toothless don’t need help obviously. Nope. None at all. Everyone else can just sit back and watch the battle. Hiccup and Toothless make it mad and fly off but the Red Death is like: “Bitch you did not just shoot your blue shit at me.” Just saying, the big dragon flying is actually scary. Just imagine that shit in real life.

Toothless and Hiccup fly into some storm clouds and disappear. They use stealth to shoot at it over and over and in a rage, the Red Death shoots fire everywhere, setting Toothless’ fake tail on fire. This is where the intensity starts for real. In a last ditch effort, they dive towards ground, giant dragon close behind. Just as it’s about to shoot some flame, Toothless turns and shoots his own fire into its mouth. The Red Death is set on fire inside its body. It hits the ground and explodes like a fucking missile. Toothless and Hiccup try to escape but their tail burns out and they get hit with the Red Death’s giant tail, knocking Hiccup unconscious and out of his seat. The last shot shows Toothless diving down to save him in a fiery wall of death.

It’s smoky and dusty when Stoick finds Toothless, absent rider, on the ground. Toothless is a little out of it but alive. Stoick gets sad because Hiccup is gone and man, this was really sad. I cried and will always cry at this scene. But it’s okay because Toothless comes around and unfolds his wings like ta-da! Hiccup is unconscious and alive. Everyone (including the dragons) is happy and cheering and Stoick thanks Toothless for saving…his SON.  /Sobs/.

When Hiccup wakes up in his house, Toothless is excited.  He discovers that he lost a leg and now has a fake one. When Toothless helps him walk and there’s a nice shot from behind of the fake leg and tail. Symbolism. Hiccup discovers that the villagers are riding and living with the displaced dragons. Everyone is happy Hiccup woke up. Especially Astrid, who punches and kisses him on the mouth this time. Yay, everyone is happy and coexisting. Gobber even made Toothless a new tail that’s red with a skull.  

So finally, they all fly together and Hiccup sends us off with an altered version of his opening montage; which made me feel nostalgic even though the film is only 80 minutes long.


The End.

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