When the first How to Train Your Dragon movie came out back in 2010, I was intrigued by the retractable teeth of Toothless, the dragon in question. To this day, I am still jealous of the inseparable bond between Hiccup, the viking (Jay Baruchel) and Toothless. I found myself reading the book, then watching the How to Train Your Dragon 2 movie in 2014. While trilogies such as The Hunger Games and Maze Runner suffer the curse of becoming uninteresting after the first or second movie, How to Train Your Dragon franchise is different.

Dreamwork’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, released on February 22, 2019, was directed by Dean DeBlois with a budget of $129 million. The cast includes several characters from the previous two movies, including Hiccup’s friends, Astrid (America Ferrera), Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig), Snoutlet (Jonah Hill), and Tuffnut (T.J. Miller).

Two new major characters are introduced in Dreamwork’s third part to the trilogy. Now a leader of the vikings, Hiccup faces an insidious villain named Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham) on his own. As a dragonhunter, Grimmel’s ultimate goal is to kill the dragon breed of  Night Furies, and he is only one dragon away from accomplishing this. The last Night Fury is Hiccup’s dragon, Toothless. Since Grimmel owns a female Light Fury dragon, his plan is to lure Toothless in with the female and capture him.

Throughout the movie, Hiccup struggles with leading the vikings, balancing his romantic life with Astrid, and helping Toothless woo the Light Fury. Though he does not have nearly as much experience as his father in leadership, he learns the skills to be a better leader through his experiences.

The realistic imagery and animated scenes of dragons are beautiful, and takes the viewer to the world of the dragons. Additionally, the voice acting in the movie pair very well with the animation. Since the voice actors have had experience from the past two movies, they are able to visualize the animated characters while acting. However, since much of the movie involves the interaction between the Light Fury and Toothless, it is difficult to understand their emotions only from their movements. If subtitles could have been shown to translate the calling sounds of the two dragons, it would have been easier to understand.

Overall, the third movie puts a good end to the trilogy, and offers a different perspective than the other two movies. This movie focuses more on the way dragons behave and much of the movie has scenes without words. The actions between Toothless and the Light Fury mimic how animals interact, and it was interesting seeing Toothless, much like Hiccup before him, become independent and proceed to a different stage in life.

I encourage others to see this movie, even without watching the first two movies.