"One of the 50 Coolest Websites...they simply tell it like it is" - TIME
How to Train Your Dragon 2 | 2014 | PG | - 1.3.2
Five years after a Viking boy (voiced by Jay Baruchel) and his dragon (voiced by Randy Thom) unite dragons and Vikings, they discover a secret ice cave and inside, they find thousands of new dragons and a woman (voiced by Cate Blanchett), as well as a cadre of thugs who are dragon trappers working for a madman (voiced by Djimon Hounsou). Also with the voices of Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, American Fererra, Kristen Wiig and Jonah Hill. Directed by Dean Deblois. [1:42]
SEX/NUDITY 1 - A woman kisses a man on the cheek and later, they hold hands briefly. A man and a woman kiss while friends watch, smiling. A husband and his wife sing a love song about dreams and adventures, kiss and dance a traditional Viking dance.
► A 20-something Viking woman stares in close-up at the bulging bicep of a dragon trapper nearby; she leans back, calling out, "Take me!" as a rope net falls over her and when on the ground, she pats the trapper's arm, kisses his cheek quickly and he rubs off the kiss, saying, "Yuk!" Two men (riding dragons) grab a woman's arms as she falls off her dragon and she stares at each man's bicep in close-up and smiles. A 20-something man tells a woman that he grew facial hair to impress her (he has only a bit of chin fuzz).
► Two women at a race wear armor that reveals cleavage.
VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - The film features many varieties and sizes of dragons that roar moderately loudly and breathe fire; many show sharp claws on four legs, large pointed teeth, and multicolor scales while one long dragon has two heads on very long necks and the heads' names are Belch and Barf; all the dragons can breathe and shoot fire, but one variety can shoot energy plasma and others have big heads with many spikes and some have long, thin necks and look like pterodactyls with finned heads, and some have two sets of wings like a bi-plane; baby dragons are miniatures of the adults with their bottoms hanging down as they fly, like bumble bees and most of the dragons behave much like cats, birds and dogs as they occasionally play-fight, fetch sticks (logs in this case), hop and purr; two gargantuan dragons each have large human-like mouths, three rows of sharp teeth, head spikes and a long, wide tuck at the corner of each side of the mouth and they roar the loudest and breathe and shoot frosted mist and ice.
► A husband jumps in front of his wife and adult son in order to fight an invader as dragons butt heads and roar and two men fistfight and swing swords at one another without striking; a dragon uses its huge tusks to gore another dragon (no blood), which falls to its side and dies; a dragon controls all the dragons on an island by hypnosis and an invader and this dragon order a small dragon to kill its rider; when the dragon backs its rider up to an ice wall another man intervenes and the dragon blows fire and kills the second man (no injury or blood is seen); the small dragon snaps out of hypnosis, groans and yelps, but is smacked on the nose by its rider who sends it away.
► Dragon riders fly erratically on baby dragons to an island; one rider smacks into an ice wall, but is OK and the riders find their home island completely frozen and a huge dragon attacking the villagers; a man confronts an invader and a hypnotized dragon, while the others distract the huge dragon with sheep they catapult into the air; an invader orders a dragon to kill its rider, but the rider talks through the haze that blurs the dragon's vision (we see through its eyes) and disenchants it until the invader orders the huge dragon to hypnotize the small dragon again, but its rider blindfolds it and the invader orders his dragon to blast the man and the dragon; the huge dragon roars icy breath at them, sending spikes of bluish ice toward the camera three times and finally encasing his targets in an ice block.
► Viking men and women wearing horned helmets and carrying swords fly dragons into battle against enemies flying on dragons in a few scenes; in a few battle sequences, a dragon catches a man who also flies, wearing leather flying-squirrel wings, but who hits snow ridges and ice (he is OK); dragons shoot fireballs into the sky and across icy ground in a few scenes and several people and dragons fall (one man and one dragon crash hard, in a close-up and toward the camera, presumably dying). Many ships pull into a bay and their occupants set up catapults on an icy beach, launching fireballs while the residents shoot arrows and swing maces and swords, as their dragons fire large balls of flame at the invaders; a woman fights an invader until the man pushes the woman down to the icy ground and is about to club her on the head when another man stops him by jumping in front of the woman (no injuries are seen).
► An ice block encasing a man and a dragon begins to glow and the dragon breaks through it with a plasma charge of breath and lunges forward, roaring and challenging a huge dragon, who roars even louder; many other dragons snap out of hypnosis and back up the challenger as they all shoot fire-breath at the huge dragon and the invader until the evil team swims away under the icy water and one of the huge tusks of the huge dragon breaks off and it roars as crowds of people watching cheer loudly.
► A Viking chief orders his villagers to prepare for war against a group of dragon trappers, but his son argues against war, and then rides away on his dragon; the younger man and a young woman make themselves prisoners of the head trapper on a wooden ship, then escape unharmed after releasing their dragons from rope ties.
► In a flashback, we see dragons setting a meeting hall on fire and hear that only one man survived. In another flashback, a man strikes a large dragon with a hammer and his wife shouts in protest (the wife and the dragon fly away together). A small dragon drops into an icy sea and rides on an ice floe until a larger dragon grabs it in its claws, carrying it to a wooden ship where a few dragons lie tied in ropes/chains on board and struck with sticks by dragon trappers and breathing fire, but other humans free the animals (no wounds are evident).
► A man finds an island full of spiky ice formations, a few wrecked wooden buildings from a battle, and an ice cave where thousands of baby dragons and a scary but friendly beast as big as a mountain, covered with spikes, with two huge tusks and a huge mouth full of sharp teeth as it puffs a little frozen mist at him; in a dark section of the cave we see a dozen wide-mouthed toothy dragons open their mouths and we see fires like a dozen ovens lighting the room.
► A man grabs another man by the throat, causing the second man to gasp and speak in a raspy voice until released. A man removes an artificial arm and we see a shoulder stump that is healed over and he tells a younger man that the arm was lost to dragons in battle and dragons must be conquered; the younger man replies that the older man uses dragons only to control other people and animals.
► A man and a woman argue with another man about giving dragons to an evil man; one man pulls a wide sword and another man pulls out a sword of fire and swings it while the man and woman escape on their dragons after cutting them loose from where they are tied. We hear that an island used to be a land of "kill or be killed" but that lasting peace occurred between dragons and humans.
► A young man pulls out a sword hilt and demonstrates fire from one end and green smoke from the other, saying that it can choke people and put them to sleep; he sets a circle of mist around him on the deck of a boat and makes it snuff itself out in a puff of smoke.
► A man on a small dragon flies by a larger double-winged dragon and its rider, who wears armor with spikes, horns, and large faux eyes; the second rider kidnaps the first man, who upon meeting the other rider on an island below, exclaims that it is someone he thought was dead for two decades. A man and a woman meet a male dragon trapper after he pulls them out of the air with rope nets launched over them by catapults (they are unharmed).
► Three Viking men each have a wooden or metalwork lower leg and one of the men also has a wooden hand (injuries from previous battles); these men work in a blacksmith's shop using a buzz saw and knives, but no one is injured. A man shows another man and a woman a scar on his upper chest, earned in a fight over dragons.
► In a recreational dragon race, dozens of sheep marked with painted archery targets are thrown into the air from catapults, dragons catch them, humans toss them back and forth in the sky like footballs, and then drop them into crates to score points (no sheep appear to be injured). A dragon race begins and we see dozens of sheep marked with painted archery targets as they shoot into the air from catapults, caught in the claws of flying dragons and dropped into crates to score points (no sheep are injured). A dragon sets fire to a shelf accidentally, but the fire goes out quickly on its own. A fat dragon sits or lies on its rider several times, like a bird on an egg. A dragon and a man try to land, but fall in the snow twice, unharmed.
► At a Viking funeral, a man says a prayer to Odin and a row of family members and friends shoot flaming arrows at a ship and into a bier on which a body lies under a sheet; the edges of the sheet begin to burn and the scene ends.
► In a vomit scene, a large dragon eats meat and regurgitates it onto the floor in a pool of saliva for a smaller dragon, who eats it and licks the floor. A dragon licks a man and the man wipes slobber away and slings it back at the dragon (we see just a hint of transparent slobber); later, the dragon licks the man again and we see no slobber, but the man says that the saliva will not come out of clothing.
LANGUAGE 2 - Name-calling (lunatic, crazy, insane, moron, genius, big baby boo, ugly, hoo-hais [like "yahoos" or "hicks"], madman, bullheaded, stubborn, amateurs, feral vigilante dragon lady, strange hostile person), stereotypical references to Vikings, the Scottish, men, women, mothers, fathers, teenagers, overweight people, the black sheep, leaders, heroes, villains, exclamations (Man, Darn [muffled], What the [last word unspoken]), 3 religious exclamations (Oh My God, God help all of us, a prayer to Odin for a funeral).
SUBSTANCE USE - A man uses green smoke several times as a drug to put enemies to sleep, and a man blows sedative darts into the neck of a dragon to put it to sleep for capture and one dart hits the back of another man who falls to the ground asleep.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Good vs. evil, race/species differences, animal rights, war, Viking funerals and religion, negotiating peace, loyalty, friendship, relationships, family, cooperation, teamwork, understanding.
MESSAGE - Real leaders protect the people and animals that are under their authority.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
Gladiator II - 2.7.2
Wicked: Part I - 3.4.2
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. - 1.5.3
Emilia Pérez - 6.6.7
how to
support us
PLEASE DONATE
We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.
NO MORE ADS!
Become a member of our premium site for just $1/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we don't always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.
how to
support us
PLEASE DONATE
We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.
NO MORE ADS!
Become a member of our premium site for just $2/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we will accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we do not always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.