The high-flying sequel to the 2010 animated hit is a reminder that some things are meant to be seen jumping off the screen.
DreamWorks Animation
Of all the add-ons and enhancements theaters have been using to set the experience of going to the movies apart from just watching them at home, 3D has the most potential to do good or evil. Lousy conversions and too-dark projection mean that sometimes you'll shell out extra money for the experience only to find it actually makes the film worse. After all, not all movies are shot to look better in three dimensions in the first place — sometimes, it just makes movement muddier and harder to follow.
But when it's done right, 3D can be a reminder that we're still expanding the limits of what movies can be and what they can do. It brings landscapes to life and adds new potential to be immersed in what you're watching. And so far, the summer's best testament to that fact hits theaters this Friday, with How to Train Your Dragon 2, the sequel to the 2010 DreamWorks hit about a Viking boy who befriends and learns to ride one of the dragons that have been raiding his town. While a lot of recent animated movies stuff the screen with bright colors, frantic action, and constant wisecracks, How to Train Your Dragon 2, like its prequel, has managed to focus on something more important — a sense of awe.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
You can watch the first five minutes of the movie above, which prove the point — it looks fine in that YouTube box, as the latest high-quality computer animation should, but it's got nothing on the experience of seeing it pop on the big screen with the depth of 3D. How to Train Your Dragon 2 is made for theaters. That minute and a half of Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and Toothless (Randy Thom) barreling over the glittering ocean, dipping close to a pod of whale-like creatures, then zooming up into the clouds, was made to be seen in as expansive a form as possible. It's an embodiment of the sense of exuberant freedom that an entirely digitally created world can offer.
Like the first installment, How to Train Your Dragon 2 has cinematographer Roger Deakins (who shot Skyfall, Revolutionary Road, and a slew of Coen brothers films) as a visual consultant, rightly pushing the gorgeousness of its fantasy world forward. There's still the brightened up town of Berk, dragon-friendly five years after the events of the first installment, perched precariously on its island outpost in the middle of the ocean, and the towering rock formations around it, poking up into the atmosphere. But thanks to dragon-riding, the franchise's universe has expanded in the sequel to include some verdant and some icy new realms that Hiccup's bent on exploring — while avoiding the responsibilities that his father Stoick (Gerard Butler) is trying to bestow on him.
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