OVP: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)

Film: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)
Stars: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, F. Murray Abraham, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig, Gerard Butler, Kit Harington
Director: Dean DeBlois
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature Film)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

We complete (for the love of god, end stories animated studios!) the How to Train trilogy this year with a lot of mixed expectations on my part.  I loved the first one, thought it was spellbinding entertainment, while the second film I actively disliked, thinking the plot was manipulative & sacrificed a lot of cool story potential.  I make it a point of not seeing the sequels to movies I didn't like, but made an exception here as I had heard from my parents that this was really good, and pretty much everyone who disliked the second film agreed that this was a return-to-form.  Plus, considering the state of this year's sequel-plagued Animated Feature race, this felt like preemptively getting a movie off of the OVP.  So (hungry for a movie after a week or two away), I snuck to the cinema to judge-would this film be similar to the first film, a surprise delight, or would it fall into the critically-acclaimed (except by me) camp of the sequel?

(Spoilers Ahead) We pickup a year after the previous film's events, where Hiccup (Baruchel) has become the chief and Toothless, his sidekick dragon, is now the "alpha" basically controlling all of the other dragons with his mind.  As you might have remembered (if you clicked the above links), I hated this plot line, and was glad to see it largely back-seated in the movie, with Toothless's pursuits focusing more on gaining a romantic partner, when a beautiful "Light Fury" comes across his path.  However, romance is interrupted when a famed dragon-slayer Grimmel (Abraham) tries to kill and capture all of the dragons, including wanting to hunt the night furies to extinction.  We watch as Hiccup tries to bring his clan to the "Hidden World" a place run by dragons where they can live in peace.  As the film unfolds, we learn that while the vikings cannot live there, the dragons soon must as they will all surely die because Grimmel will inevitably be replaced with another violent man soon after his defeat, and the world isn't ready for the splendor of the dragons.

The movie is considerably grander-in-scale than its previous films, and honestly, is probably the best in the series (I haven't seen the first one in a while, but I don't remember it hitting these kinds of heights).  The animation is prettier than any mainstream studio has come up with this decade other than Coco, with majestic rides through the night sky and a symphony of dragons in the Hidden World.  I made a comment that the last film would have been better as a silent movie, and I remembered thinking that this one would totally work as a silent movie as well.  If the film ends up being a capper at the Oscars, getting a trophy as a nod to all that it's accomplished as a series over the past decade, we can at least rest assured that it will be winning while also being a splendid picture.

Thankfully it isn't silent, though, as we get some of the most meaningful plots of the series.  The environmentalism answer is clearly there, with dragons being an easy substitute for the rainforest or tigers or pandas or name your favorite climate change cause here, but it also shows the stakes in a major way.  Yes, Hiccup gets to see Toothless again over the ending (I could have done without the literal realization of the reunion, rather than just assuming it as a promise), but the dragons leave this world forever, and the world is hollow because of the greed of people like Grimmel.  That's a sort of "you can have your cake, but you can't eat it" sort of mentality that has largely been absent from modern animation, hearkening back to the era of Pinocchio or Bambi in a way.  I loved it, and think Disney should be watching its back because they haven't made a sequel this inventive in a decade despite sequels being pretty much all they're capable of making.  I'm going with 4 stars here, as the side character jokes still don't work for me and I feel everyone other than Hiccup and the plot itself are underwritten, but know that the franchise is totally redeemed in my eyes, and well done to Dreamworks for making something so special and (hopefully) ending it with such care.