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“But how is the message of this film that if you love something then you should let it go” I can hear literally nobody asking me. Well, we all know that dragons can have big horns, but in this film Toothless, the lead dragon, sees a lady dragon of his own species and gets a big new horn that's just for her. It's not that The Hidden World isn't an accurate title in terms of the film's plot but if it had been up to me then I'd have called it How To Train Your Dragon: The Fuckening. Toothless wants to bang and as such he has to leave his best friend, the lead character Hiccup, to shag her in the hidden world of the dragons. I'm not sure why he can only do her in a place full of his own species and can't just mount her behind a rock in the village where he lives with his best friend? I guess Toothless likes an audience when he's getting it on and he only likes to be watched by eyes that will be into it. Although without meaning to sound too superficial, I think he could do better than the girl dragon that he goes for. He's quite cute for a flying salamander whereas the girl he's found looks like a cross between a cat and a moderately priced vibrator. Honestly, there was a good hour in this film where I wasn't sure if he wanted to have sex with her or just turn her settings to 'fast' and then slide her up his arse.
So that's basically what the film is about anyway. Hiccup loves his dragon but knows that Toothless has fallen in love and so the whole thing is ultimately building up to them having to say goodbye. However, because snapchat has convinced kids that stories can't last longer than four seconds they've added a secondary story with a bit of plot to keep things moving along at a faster pace. Unfortunately, that secondary story is pretty much the same as the one from the previous film in which a mad bastard has turned up with an army and with the intention of taking Toothless away. In the previous film it was to add him to a dragon army and in this one, it's to kill him because the villain just hates that damn species so much. So there's a little subtext about intolerance I guess. It's probably because of all the Trump and Brexit shit but it could also be to calm people like me down who have no patience for noisy kids and their thick parents. It also means that there is a little bit of tension as to whether Hiccup will be saying goodbye to his best friend or simply watching him get a spike to the skull as the villain catches up with him. But not really because at no point did I ever really feel like the characters were in any huge danger. I mean can you imagine if that's what happened? The posters have promised a fun adventure for all of the family, the annoying parents have brought their horrible children, and then suddenly the film ends with Toothless skinned and turned into a fucking boat that the villain sails into the fucking sunset.
However, the fact that I never even suspected that might happen is kind of a problem of the film. Because not only is it in the shadow of the previous instalment in terms of plot but also in terms of emotion. The stuff between Hiccups parents, voiced by Gerard Butler and Cate Blanchett was incredible in the last movie and as moving as anything in a fantasy film aimed at any age group. After his great performance in the first movie, it was also further proof that Gerard Butler is at his absolute best when you can't actually see him in a film. If this is to be the closing chapter in the trilogy and the one in which Hiccup and Toothless, the beating hearts of the franchise, must part ways, then I should have been in fucking floods. Knowing that the film would likely end with them having to say goodbye to each other, I walked into the cinema as though it was the green fucking mile and that I'd end up dead in a puddle of tears by the end. And yet when that moment arrives they fucking botch it. It's almost as though the real ending was shown to test audiences and the result was so emotional that it was deemed so unsafe for public viewing that they took it out and buried it in a fucking desert next to those old shit E.T games.
Despite all of that though I'd say that not only did I really like this movie but it's also much better than the average animated family film that's shat into the cinema. I know we've been treated with The Lord Of The Rings movies recently but when I think of fantasy films, in general, I think of Krull, Hawk The Slayer, Dragonslayer and all of that other 1980's bollocks that people are nostalgic about. Well, as a fantasy franchise I would say that the How To Train Your Dragon series is at the higher end of the genre and if this film had only packed more of a punch then it would be right up near the top of it. This film is basically just another adventure with Hiccup and Toothless which I'm always up for, it's just a shame that it didn't build up to something more. It's a bit like going to see someone old and fat like Meatloaf live in concert I suppose. You kind of suspect that something sad might happen like his heart gives in and he dies on stage and you're hoping that if it happens it happens after he builds up to his masterpiece Bat Out Of Hell. But then the concert ends without him singing that song or dying and so you're not as sad as you expected to be and you didn't feel that you hit the heights that you were hoping for. But you know.. fuck it. It was still really good overall. On the one hand, it might not have been as impactful as I hoped it'd be, but on the other it did look incredible and I did still love the characters. In which case, and as the still-living Meatloaf might say, I guess two out of three ain't bad. Thanks for reading, motherfuckers, and see you next time.
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