Sequelitis means that there's no high-flying good times with "How to Train Your Dragon 2."
The second chapter in a proposed trilogy, "Dragon 2" stumbles as it brings back young, resourceful, courageous Hiccup (voiced again by Jay Baruchel), his happy tribe of antic Vikings and their domesticated dragons four years later in a visually stunning installment that lacks good spirited fun.
Instead we slavishly endure a CliffsNotes version of Joseph Campbell's theories on the power of myth as young Hiccup resists his destiny as he plays alongside Toothless, his odd-looking domesticated diminutive dragon, and discovers first his long-lost mother Valka (Cate Blanchett with a weird accent), who tends lost dragons, and then an implacable enemy named Drago (Djimon Hounsou).
While Hiccup's dad Stoick (Gerard Butler), the Viking tribal leader with a thick-as-molasses Scottish burr, is happy to reunite with this long lost love, there is trouble brewing as the evil Drago wants to rule the world with a dragon army under the influence of his alpha dragon, which must battle Valka's alpha dragon.
If this is a morass that takes up far too much time and becomes a serious downer in its storytelling, there is a crowd-pleasing subplot with the athletic Ruffnut (again Kristen Wiig), who comes across as a bull-riding rodeo-style Viking warrior woman pursued by a pair of hapless but funny Vikings from her village, Snoutlout (Jonah Hill) and Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
What's fun is that Ruffnut has taken notice of the burly biceps of Drago's dragon-rounding minion Eret ("Game of Thrones" star Kit Harington) and likes what she sees.
This silly, slapsticky respite is a wonderful antidote to embattled Hiccup's far more serious perils and paths.
("How to Train Your Dragon 2" features a couple of dramatic encounters, including a character's death, that may be upsetting to young viewers.)
— cinesteve@hotmail.com
Source : http://bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/2014/06/dragon_struggles_to_take_flight
