How to Train Your Dragon 2 and its momentary maturity.

For about 5 minutes, the most daring and mature animated feature made by a major American studio. And then it's not.

So, Berk has dragons now. What about the rest of the world? How to Train Your Dragon 2 jumps right where we left off: Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is a dragon master, and with his pal Toothless, the last of the nightfury’s, he scopes out the areas surrounding Berk for danger, and potentially more dragons to save. That is until he finds a massive stalactite structure, realises there’s a crazed warlord called Drago Bludvist making a dragon army, and, whoops, his thought long-dead mother is suddenly alive. Just another day in this part Scottish, part Viking, all Pokémon world that DreamWorks have dreamt up, and surprisingly for fans of the first, Dean DeBlois manages to take his ‘boy and his dog’ story to a whole new, adult level - for a moment, at least.

And that moment truly is wondrous. Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler) locks eyes with his wife, whom he’s missed for twenty long years, Valka Haddock (Cate Blanchett), and the child-friendly ‘pick your dragon’ vibe of the movie shifts into something far quieter, more reserved, and more mature. At their very best, DreamWorks are as good as Pixar at this: taking animation, engaging for kids due to its scale, size and fantasy, and grounding it in personal, human stories. We think immediately of Helen and Bob Parr in ‘The Incredibles’ – them having superpowers is kind of an afterthought compared to what Helen believes is an affair that Bob is having at work, but of course, she’s also very stretchy. That necessary humanity and grounding is the central divider between what is designed for kids and for everyone else. In How to Train Your Dragon 2, when this father and mother, still in love after twenty years apart, stare at each other, Valka helplessly trying to come up with an excuse that’s not at all necessary, it’s hard for the audience not to burst into tears, in part because it does come out of nowhere.

Before that, it’s an expected sequel. Hiccup has grown into a young man, his face matured, and he now flies around in this strange squirrel-suit that lets him float around without Toothless. Hiccup cannot control this thing to save his life. Stoick continues to pester him about taking his place someday and living up to his legacy, a continuation of the idea in the first that manifests initially in Stoick being ashamed of his ‘feminine’ son. Back on Berk, dragons have assimilated into the culture and become *the* differentiator between them and any other nearby nations. There are games, and races, and they’re used for building, cooking and smithing. How to Train Your Dragon has quickly changed into How to Train Our Dragons, and despite the cataclysmic change in circumstance, the island is flourishing. The only romance to be seen is the sprouting one between Astrid and Hiccup: as rebellious and idealistic as ever, they fight against Stoick every chance they get.

Unfortunately, it is also here that the horrible side characters from the first film rear their purposely ugly heads. Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut are not funny on any planet, and the movies' incessant attempt to make them work is embarrassing at times. The bulk of what they’re given to do here is to ogle over Eret (Kit Harington), a dragon trapper they meet very early on, and fight in a love triangle that he doesn’t even know he’s a part of. It’s a grating showcase of unconfidence to pry uninterested kids' eyes awake if they were to somehow bore of an astounding array of gorgeous dragons, that repeats and repeats and repeats. Were they to be removed from the film entirely, it suddenly gets more interesting; maybe that explosive moment of maturity is set up, with longer moments of silence. Or perhaps that would ruin it entirely.

The size of that impact is only because it’s at such a whiplash with everything else. When Hiccup first realises that Valka is his mother and she’s the dragon rider causing havoc for Drago Bludvist, the first question is: What will Stoick think? This is your stereotypical, primal Viking leader. Beard down to his chest, arms the size of tree trunks, Odin on Earth, a man so disappointed by his son’s apparent weakness that he’s willing to throw away their relationship to go to war. In the first movie, the assumption that a dragon killed his wife was a large part of his confusion and hatred of them. He’s a lighter touch after Toothless saves Hiccup, and has been comparatively lovely, though still stern, at the start of the sequel, but that question remains. I’ll go so far as to say that question is what is leading the movie for the next 20 minutes: regardless of how terrifying Djimon Hounsou’s Drago Bludvist is (he’s very scary), or how much of a threat his legion of dragons are to the idealistic calm of Berk, the movie always has him on the fringes. Further to that, after Stoick’s death, moments after the family finally got back together, the ending feels rushed and minor.

Nothing could match up. The thought of taking a family, split apart for Hiccup’s entire lifetime, bringing them together again for two scenes of pure merriment and nostalgia, and then murdering the father moments later is verging on sadistic. More than that, revisiting the idea in the first movie of dragons being dangerous by making the cute, scaly mascot do it? Actual insanity. That should be the end of the movie. Bludvist has not only destroyed this idealised society of humans and dragons, he’s also destroyed this family, and, in an ideal continuation of this more mature take on the story, he’s poisoned Hiccup’s trust in Toothless. Instead, the movie continues, and with a series of boring albeit satisfying button presses, Toothless becomes the alpha and saves the day through the extraordinary power of friendship. Credits roll.

It's not a disappointment by any standards other than its own. Grander, bolder, and without retracting or retaking steps from the first movie, this sequel opens up the world for a darker, more violent story, which it then thankfully takes. For about 5 minutes, this is the most daring and mature animated feature made by a major American studio. And then it's not. Even still, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a triumphant stab at what could be done with enough balls to weigh a Gronckle down. Maybe the live action will have those (it won’t).