We are going to be seeing significant endings in a lot of various media franchises in 2019, including a certain HBO series that heavily involves dragons. For a while I completely overlooked that the third "How to Train Your Dragon," would be capping off a series of films and television shows that stretches all the way back to 2010. To date, I still think that first "Dragon" movie is the best thing that Dreamworks Animation has ever done. The third film, titled "The Hidden World," doesn't match that initial high, but I still found it a very satisfying watch.
Hiccup (Jay Baruschel) is now the chief of the viking clan on Berk, and leads a group of dragon riders against the hunters and poachers that would exploit dragons for their own ends. He and his Night Fury, Toothless, attract the attention of a particularly dangerous character named Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham), who uses a female Light Fury to try and distract them. Hiccup starts looking for the Hidden World, the place where dragons are rumored to have originated from, hoping it's somewhere that dragons and humans can finally live together in peace.
I appreciate how the series has let Hiccup grow up over time. He's in his twenties now, considering marrying his longtime girlfriend Astrid (America Ferrera), and being forced to weigh his dream of a dragon utopia against what's really best for his friends. And then there's Toothless, who gets a cute love interest and is allowed to do a little maturing on his own. Frankly, this probably would have been a better movie if it had just focused on Hiccup and Toothless finding their paths diverging naturally, instead of the whole complicated business with Grimmel and the other dragon hunters targeting Berk. Grimmel is a decently threatening villain, and provides excuses for big action scenes, but I don't think that this story needed him.
Because what I like the most about "Hidden World" is its willingness to be bittersweet, and its unusual sense of finality. Sure, Dreamworks could pull a "Toy Story 4" and finagle some way to bring everybody back for another adventure, but this movie provides such a nice emotional endpoint to the series, I can't imagine it was ever intended to be anything but a grand finale. And watching all our characters get to that ending is worth all the bombastic nonsense of fights and chase scenes and tedious comic relief that feel like they were piled on to the story to keep the younger kids from getting bored. The comic relief this time out is particularly rough, since none of the running jokes with the secondary cast pay off very well.
On the other hand, "Hidden World" continues to showcase gorgeous animation and art direction, with a special emphasis on its virtual cinematography. There are several sequences with Toothless interacting with and courting his potential mate that are almost totally silent displays of pure character animation. And then there are the dragon riding scenes, which are always a highlight, and the fantastical light show of the first discovery of the Hidden World, and a sunset cliffside scene with Hiccup and Toothless that is among the most beautiful things I've ever seen in an animated film. Along with director and writer Dean DeBlois, the final round of curtain calls should also include the invaluable John Powell for his sweeping score, and the main voice actors, Jay Baruschel and America Ferrera. It's nice that Baruschel finally lets Hiccup sound like a grown-up here, as he's working out how to be one.
Dreamworks has leaned pretty heavily on "Dragons" over the past few years as they've weathered some rocky transitions. "Hidden World" is their first film to be released under the new distribution deal with Universal Pictures, but it feels like the end of an era. This is going to be the last big Dreamworks movie for a while. We've yet to see whether any of their more recent hits like "Trolls" and "Boss Baby" will be able to sustain multiple films, and there's been talk of rebooting older franchises like "Puss in Boots."
I'm hoping for the best, though, as Dreamworks has made some remarkable films over the years, and they've clearly got a lot left in the tank.
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