We caught this in the cinema due to my wife’s insistence. I quite liked the first movie. It was standard cartoon action fare but had excellent world-building and some of the best flight sequences ever put on screen. It also helped that the plot, while being yet another retelling of the hero’s journey, is tightly focused and easy to become immersed in.

Unfortunately, this sequel is very weak. Since the setting and characters are already well established, the film struggles to add interesting elements into the mix. The result ends up being a diffuse mess of new characters and a meandering plotline. Case in point: the main villain doesn’t even make an appearance until more than half of the film is already over. Instead, the plot dances around the identity of a mysterious new character who isn’t so mysterious after all because trailers have already revealed the identity.

Another huge problem is that the director seems to be unable to decide how adult a tone the film should have. Emotional moments are stilted due to poor dialogue and an obsession with livening up drama with silly gags. True, a major character dies in the film, a rarity in children’s cartoons, but the jarring event feels at odds with the mood of the rest of the film. This is made worse by the clumsy use of camera angles to avoid needing to portray death head on.

Finally, while there are plenty of fights and dragon flying stunts, there’s a ho-hum feel to it. The sense of exhilaration and excitement is gone. It goes without saying that there is no sense of danger or tension at all. Even the humour feels uninspired and insipid. Scenes of the female supporting character mooning over the new character voiced by Kit Harrington of Game of Thrones fame feel embarrassing rather than amusing.

Overall this is mediocre effort that suffers from a severe case of sequelitis. From all accounts the television show is just as bad. Avoid.