How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is directed by Dean DeBlois and it is the final chapter in the brilliant How To Train Your Dragon trilogy. Hiccup and Toothless are on two very important paths which forces them apart. While Toothless falls in love with a Light Fury, Hiccup has to find The Hidden World, a haven for dragons. However, the evil Grimmel has other plans for Hiccup and Toothless. This movie stars Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, F. Murray Abraham and Cate Blanchett.

I am a huge fan of this franchise, I’ve been following it for years now and I was extremely excited for this movie. I went to see this movie on opening day and I had a terrible experience, I was late, my card wasn’t working, I sat on the last seat in one of the front rows so the screen was badly lit from my point of view and I got a call during the climax of the movie. I didn’t focus clearly on the movie so I had to watch it another time. After rewatching it (twice) and gathering my thoughts on this movie, I can gladly say that The Hidden World is one of the best final chapters ever in a trilogy despite it being the “weakest” of the three.

There are a few flaws with this movie that I’d like to discuss first, just to get them out of the way. Firstly, Grimmel was a waste of time. No offence to the voice-actor, I think he did a great job voicing him but there was literally no reason to have him here. If he just had to be a part of the story, he could’ve been used better, his plan was very cliched and he just became intolerable near the end. The romance between Toothless and The Light Fury was adorable and surprisingly mature. The scene where Toothless is trying to impress the Light Fury is hilarious, my mom was in tears from laughing so hard.

So is The Hidden World all that exciting? Absolutely. We only get to see it once but my gods does it make an impression. The scene was transcending, my jaw dropped. John Powell knocked it out of the park with the score in this scene. The colours just pop off the screen, it was amazing. However, this scene MUST be seen in 3D. It makes you feel weightless, it’s as if you are on a dragon yourself. Even after experiencing for three times it never failed to amaze me. I don’t know if it was intentional to keep The Hidden World almost hidden for the entire movie but even though we see it only once, it makes it count.

A lot of reviews complained about the silly humour clashing with the mature story. I don’t understand this as every movie in the trilogy featured this type of humor. Sure the humor was played up a bit more in this movie, but it’s actually funny. Kristen Wiig has a scene all to herself and she absolutely nails it. It was hilarious, it actually reminded me of some of her SNL work back in the day. Justin Rupple who replaces TJ Miller as Tuffnut tries his best, the bit with his beard was hilarious. Jay Baruchel and America Ferrera are great as always as Hiccup and Astrid. I love the scenes they have together, you can feel how much love they have for each other, and it’s believable.

Dean DeBlois, the director has said multiple times that he used the Star Wars trilogy as a sort of guide to move the story in this trilogy and it definitely shows and if I’m being honest I think he did a better job, story-wise. I love the first two Star Wars but I think Return of the Jedi is easily the weakest and it doesn’t even compare to the other two. This time while The Hidden World isn’t as impressive as its predecessors (story-wise), it gave me everything I asked for: closure. Star Wars ended with an Ewok party. Not the most exciting of endings. Speaking of Star Wars, just like in that franchise, the characters in this franchise grow a lot over the course of these films, the Hiccup from this movie takes actions the younger Hiccup wouldn’t dare to imagine.

I was absolutely horrified about how this movie would end. I was afraid that we wouldn’t get a serious ending, boy was I wrong. Having seen this movie three times, the epilogue scene is the one scene which moved me to tears each time. It is literally perfect, the expressive animation and the indescribably gorgeous score by John Powell made this scene unforgettable. Experiencing this wonderful franchise coming to a close with an audience also made it better. The gasps and the tears were there. The ending alone is worth going to see this movie. It literally ended on the best note possible and I couldn’t be happier as a massive fan of this franchise.

Overall, How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is an incredibly satisfying end to this wonderful franchise. While it has some problems story-wise regarding the antagonist, the movie has its gorgeous, expressive animation, designs, breathtaking musical score and emotional ending to save it. I can happily say that this is one of the best trilogies of all time.

RATING: A-