Review: An excellent film with lots of atmosphere, heart and a heck of a good ending.
What makes this movie great is what has made the previous entries so great. This is the world and the characters. While it is one thing for an animated fantasy to look visually beautiful, it is quite another for it to make you feel like you are transported to another world. This is what this series has done so incredibly and what makes it stand out. Like the second movie this film also expands upon the world, however this film takes that even further. The sheer scope of this movie is incredible, and some of the new places this movie takes us feel just as real as Berk. One thing I really appreciate about this film is that it doesn't feel like a tacked on sequel, but something that was well built up to. It is amazing to look at Hiccup as we saw him in the first movie and how he is here. He was grown and matured considerably. Not only has he taken on the role of chief after the events of the second movie, but he has fully grown into and encompassed the part. He may not be like his father, but he is a great leader none the less. Having watched him grow up during the last two movies, we take pride in him. Yet despite how much he has mature, he has not become a new character. He is still completely and utterly Hiccup. His maturity is also shown heavily through his relationships with Astrid and Toothless both of which are very touching here. I also love that this movie takes its time in its storytelling. It is not out to give us action and laughs every second but rather to make us as emotionally involved as possible. The slower pace (certainly slower than the last two movies) helps make this movie feel all the more real and we are sucked further into the world because of it.
This movie does have it faults though. Most of all is much of the humor. Much of it feels really forced and out of place. With the new found maturity of Hiccup and Astrid, the rest of the young Vikings are still extremely immature and seem to only exist to tell jokes that are well immature. I guess this could work if those jokes were funny but most of them simply aren't. This is not to say this movie has no humor that works however. Toothless courting the "Lightfury" is really funny. The villain can at times feel more like a great idea of a villain than actually a great villain. I love the idea that he was a lot like Hiccup would have been if he choose a different path and his dedication to the hunt. Still I couldn't help but feel that he didn't seem to have the presence such a villain should have. One also feels that the battle filled climax is a little underwhelming and not as exciting as it should have been.
Still if this movie was not perfect, everything that happened after the climax was. Honestly you could not ask for a better ending to the series than the ending of this movie. I prefer not to give much away, but these final scenes were filled with pure emotion and power. Most of all they felt like a true and perfect conclusion to this series.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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