Hiccup his dragon, Toothless and their friends (America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. In the meantime, a caped, dreadlocked hunter called Drago (Djimon Hounsou) is looking to capture dragons for his world-conquering war. His father, Stoick, wants him to be chief someday. The protagonist is still the skinny, peg-legged viking Hiccup Horrendous Haddock (Jay Baruchel), who, having persuaded his larger, more bellicose brethren to live with dragons, now must face the possibility of leadership. The half-movements, the sauntering and shrugging and throwing up of arms: It’s better than lifelike. The human motion is almost more graceful than the dragons’, and the dragons could dance for Alvin Ailey. The sequel, which DeBlois also helmed, is beautiful. The writer and director, Dean DeBlois, wrote a strong enough story for a more-than-serviceable cartoon. The colors were bright, but they weren’t veering on the three-dimensional. The motion was navigable but it lacked the trademark richness and eloquence that is Pixar’s stock in trade. How to Train Your Dragon’s swashbuckling lessons of taming and tolerance were accompanied by stiffness. That is apparently enough time for stunning progress in digital animation technology. The original, which hails from the first of Cressida Cowell’s dozen How To … children’s books, was released four years ago. It’s got the emotional, humorous, exciting sweep you want from a summer movie. The entire film is a romance - visually, parentally, ecologically. But when his massive, burly viking (Stoick the Vast) and her petite preservationist share a dance, her touch and tremulous singing transform the gravitational properties of his boulder of a body. How their scenes were recorded is unclear. Then there is the unexpected pleasure of the voices of Cate Blanchett and Gerard Butler. The flight here doesn’t feel simulated even in the plain-old 2-D version, the cliff dives and cloud-surfing feel chest-clutchingly real.

Dragons breathe ice and fire that look equally minty. But it’s useful to consider how something like How to Train Your Dragon 2 makes magic. It’s easy to take for granted the familiar pleasures of a good animated movie.

How to train your dragon 2