A sleeper hit upon release, 2010's "How to Train Your Dragon" opened well enough but then hung on for months after, reclaiming its spot as the number-one movie at the box office in its fifth weekend. With the film earning close to $500-million internationally, a sequel was naturally greenlit. By taking its time in the four years since the first movie, Dreamworks has mounted a superior second installment, one that gives heretofore untapped personality to its characters and an extra shot of heart to the touching, age-old tale of a Viking and his dragon. For these reasons—and for literally soaring set-pieces that one-up similar scenes in its predecessor where Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) takes flight on the back of winged creature Toothless—"How to Train Your Dragon 2" is a notch above. What it is not is a truly great animated feature, missing out on a memorable, well-used villain while going a little slack in the pacing department toward the third act.
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