Legend of the BoneKnapper Dragon (2010)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Best movie of this year hands down!

A Disappointing Continuation

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Hiccup and his friends embark on a quest to find the legendary Boneknapper dragon, which, as told by Gobber, tried to get him and his treasure numerous times. It's a short story from the "How to train your dragon" universe and although Toothless is missing, it manages to be quite entertaining through its cartoony inserts. It's finale is a laugh and predictable but it's a good short overall. Nothing out of the ordinary unfortunately.

This 13-minute animated short movie does not even feature the dragon main character from "How to Train Your Dragon". instead it is all about the Boneknapper as the title already suggests. Gobber is almost obsessed with finding it and the kids just cannot take him seriously. I have to say this was a fairly forgettable effort for the first half in terms of drama and humor, but when the Boneknapper actually entered the picture it became a lot more entertaining. I did not like the way they animated the tales that Gobber narrates at all. Of course, they have to make it look differently from the usual animation here, but they could have come up with something better than that. Boneknapper, on the other hand, is nicely animated and the story around it is a bit predictable, but still not bad at all. Also nice is that the voices of all the actors from the real movie, including some big names, are included in here. It's a decent watch I might say. Not a must-see by any means, but nicely done all in all. Oh yeah, now there are a couple more short films out there about this franchise, a television series and of course a second movie. A third will follow. Give these a chance if you enjoyed the first "How to Train Your Dragon" movie. I personally would love to see Boneknapper in the third film. I kinda like the character. Oh yeah final note: The director here, John Puglisi, also worked in the art department of several animated films including HTTYD. You can check out the other ones on his filmography. As director in charge, however, he has not been too prolific to this day.

This animated short is a sequel to How to Train Your Dragon and released as a DVD extra.The film follows Hiccup and his friends accompanying their mentor, Gobber, on a quest to kill the mythical Boneknapper Dragon. The dragon is recounted by Gobber in some dubious stories which we see presented in traditional 2D animation. I presume using such as animation technique was also quicker and cheaper to produce.The normal story is done in CGI. Its amusing enough for kids and I liked the voice acting of Craig Ferguson who plays Gobber the Belch. The story is not deep and moves briskly enough.

Let me start out by saying that I'm a huge fan of the original HTTYD film. The plot and characters, the voice acting, the visuals, and the score were all superb and I rank the movie highly amongst all of the animated films I've seen. I'm aware that this is supposed to be a "short film" and not a full- length sequel to the movie. However, that is no excuse for throwing together a half-arsed job in an attempt to milk what looks to be a very promising franchise. If I could erase my memory of viewing this short, I would. Let me break down everything that was wrong about this "film" for you:The plot: Technically, HTTYD is a "family" movie aimed towards kids; I get that. However, being in my 20s I still found the original story to be highly enjoyable (if a bit predictable) but still with a respectable level of emotional maturity. Still, the dialogue was witty and the story flowed well. I'm well aware that you can't do much in the span of 15 minutes, but the story in LOTBD was embarrassingly juvenile such that anyone over the age of seven would find "uncool" to watch. Did they hire the same writers? Jokes were lame, and everyone's personalities were reduced to stereotypes. Toothless had more of a cameo than an active role, despite the fact that he is one of the principal characters. Heck, the hammerhead sharks and yak had more screen time (take from that statement the content of the plot)! The film was more about Gobber, who I found to be quite funny in the original but I hated how he was portrayed here as a paranoid, stubborn, bumbling oaf.The visuals: This was what shocked me the most, aside from the horrendous script writing. What happened?! The original movie had absolutely mind-blowing visuals; the details they put into both the characters and environment were stunning. The environments were incredibly stale and unpolished, like something I would have expected from the 90's in terms of quality. And to cut even more corners, they stuck in some lame 2D schlock-fest to fill up about half the time. The score: I loved John Powell's soundtrack to the movie. It's on my iPod and I've listened to it about a dozen times. To make it even more obvious that this film was a last-minute idea, they didn't both to re- hire Mr. Powell to create a new score, and they instead re-used everything from the original. I was looking forward to hearing some more original stuff, but it became a predictable disappointment.Frankly, I'm also disappointed with the voice actors that they would lend their talents to such a shoddy production. If the quality of this film is a preview of what I can expect from the second and third full- length sequels, then Dreamworks will have lost my support for this once- promising franchise.