March 2, 2019 – There aren't too many feature length animated trilogies, perhaps none as good as this one. Dreamworks animation has done it, capped off a trilogy of “How to Train Your Dragon” movies with a fitting final chapter of high quality.

Fittingly, Hiccup, Astrid, and the other dragon-riding vikings, finally grow up in this film, and face up to the consequences of what they have done to the dragons in making them livestock, war horses as it were. There is a missed opportunity in the story to say something about the proliferation of dangerous weapons, which is exactly what dragons are. Instead, another dragon-hating villain is conjured, Grimmel (voiced by F. Murray Abraham) similar to Drago Bludvist in the second film of the trilogy.

Grimmel has harnessed the power of dragons to enslave them in his quest to destroy the last of the Night Furies, dragons which can control all the others. Grimmel is evil, ruthless and clever. He devises a way to lure Hiccup's night fury dragon Toothless, away from Hiccup.

Hiccup and Toothless have been leading successful raids to free imprisoned dragons, but this has led to overcrowding on the Island of Berk, where Hiccup and the other vikings live. Hiccup hits upon a plan to evacuate Berk and try to find the hidden kingdom of the dragons (a different place than the hidden dragon domains in the first and second films). When they find the hidden kingdom, it turns out to be a magical place, an impossible place really, where dragons live in a kind of giant cave system under the ocean.

Hiccup decides that the vikings of his tribe will always be targets as long as they have dragons, so he comes up with a plan to take the dragons to the hidden kingdom where they will be safe. Of course, in real life, a viking would no more give up his dragon than a cowboy would give up his horse. A dragon is too big an advantage in terms of speed and firepower to give up, but this isn't real life. This is more like animal rights political correctness.

Grimmel leads a devastating attack against Berk and steals all of the dragons on the island. Hiccup, Astrid and the others have to come up with a plan to get the dragons back on their own. In order to do this, Astrid has to build up Hiccup's confidence, which has been severely deflated by Grimmel's successful attack, and the loss of Toothless.

After a big adventure, there is a nice little epilogue that sums everything up. It shows what has happened to certain key characters after the main part of the story is over. It wraps everything up nicely, as this movie seems to wrap up the trilogy for good. It is a nice sentiment and a nice story, combined with marvelous animation, which has only gotten more sophisticated and effective over the years, thanks to advances in technology. This film rates a B.

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