How To Train Your Dragon 3: no hidden depths

graphic by Amanda Shi When you think of great animated movies, what comes to mind? Maybe you think of Hayao Miyazaki movies likeSpirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro. Maybe you think of DreamWorks classics like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda. Mostly you think of Pixar, probably — movies like Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and Wall-E. Now, go out and watch How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and let me know if it places in your pantheon of great animation. I’ll tell you this much: it didn’t for me.I saw DreamWorks’ latest addition about a week ago and, well, there’s not much to say about it. The script was laughably simple and embarassingly cheesy. The plot followed the overdone, conventional structure of pitting good versus evil in a showdown to keep the world safe. The villain was one of those “I’m-evil-because-I’m-evil” type of villain with no real motivation or character development. In short, it was bland, forgettable, and underwhelming.And yet, walking out of the theater, laughing off some of the more cringeworthy lines of dialogue, I couldn’t help but feel a certain guilt, a certain shame at having been so harsh in my critique of the movie. I thought not meant to be intellectually challenging or especially thought-provoking. It’s supposed to be dumb, escapist, lighthearted fun. After all, it’s a kid’s movie. And maybe that’s all it needs to be. Even though it doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, it doesn’t do anything cinematically egregious either.” Still, I couldn’t help but think about my love of Ratatouille and the great Pixar movies of the early 2000s like The Incredibles, Wall-E, and Toy Story. You watch those movies, and it doesn’t feel like you’re watching some trite film that only appeals to kids. You feel like you’re watching undeniably great movies that couldn’t be produced in any other medium. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, although incredibly well-animated, wasn’t a great movie. On top of that, it underutilized its medium of animation to tell its story. In fact, it’s one of the first animated movies I’ve watched that I could imagine live-action. Unlike How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, some plots, characters, and ideas would not work — or wouldn’t work well — in live-action. Take Shrek for example. Imagine Shrek and Donkey and Fiona all CGI; imagine having an actual, hyper-realistic, real-life swamp How To Train Your Dragon 3: no hidden depths

surrounding Shrek’s home. Just imagine any scene in that movie live-action. It would be absurd; you wouldn’t be able to take any of it seriously. Do this same thought-experiment with Cars, A Bug’s Life, and Monsters, Inc. It’s silly when you try to picture it live-action. Because the subject matter is so bizarre and fantastical, grounding it in reality through real human actors and sets would strip the movie of all its whimsy and imaginative magic. This makes sense because most animated movies are curated towards children, whose developing minds feed off imaginative, fanciful, and colorful cinematic experiences. Still, animated does not mean superficial. In fact, great animated movies are united by their fearless willingness to tackle deep and difficult issues: The Incredibles with its themes of marriage, abandonment, and family; Wall-E with its themes of love and loss; and Inside Out with its themes of depression, loss of innocence, and grappling with complex emotions. One thing that people always say about great animated movies is that they appeal to and challenge kids and adults equally. Great animated movies act as the bridge between the world of children and the world of adults. For adults, it’s like looking through a child’s eyes, and re-learning and appreciating all the world’s truths and sorrows from a more innocent and refreshing perspective. And children, through that bright and colorful filter of animation, can learn and grow through a visual experience that tackles more real, deep issues. Because of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World’s inability to strike that balance between depth and vibrant lightness, it fails to become a truly great animated movie. Not only does it fall short on a superficial level, but it also does not meet the criteria of what it takes for an animated movie to be superb. Still, even though it may not be the best animated movie, it’s not bad by any means. Little children, even if they can’t understand the movie’s wasted potential, will undoubtedly enjoy this movie and its goofy script and characters. Even I, a mature and enlightened adolescent, got a few chuckles out of it.