On the plus side, this follow-up does seize the opportunity to evolve from where the first film ended, portraying a society that has learned from the hero Hiccup to incorporate dragons throughout their daily lives. On the (rather large) down side, this is about the only way in which events unfold in a logical way.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 certainly has "sequence of events" which take place, but lacking any of the sense necessary to truly call it a "plot." Characters can't do things, then later suddenly can without us ever having seen them learn to do so. They have abrupt changes of heart without motivation. They wallow in an emotion for one scene as though intensity will make up for the fact that they'll be completely over it in the next scene. Sure, the audience for the film is primarily children, so I'm not expecting the story to be complicated or deep. But I am asking it to be more connected than a spinning mobile with dragons dangling from the strings.
The entire cast of the first film returns. Joining the originals are Cate Blanchett (wielding her Galadriel gravitas), Djimon Hounsou (growling with menace as the villain of the piece), and Kit Harrington (of Game of Thrones). The ensemble does inject enough skill into the movie to at least make the nonsense fun going down. Kristen Wiig is particularly funny in the occasional one-liners her character tosses off.
Still, at its core, the movie felt to me like the "kids' movie" version of the "mindless summer blockbuster" in which a threadbare script exists only to deliver explosions -- in this case, dragons. Given how many people seem to have no problem with those explosion movies, I'm sure there's an audience that will enjoy How to Train Your Dragon 2 a great deal. Me, I found it to be a C- movie. It felt like the sort of thing that would slowly drive a parent nuts if it was the movie their child insisted on watching every day.
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