* Rating: PG for adventure action and some mild rude humor.* Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.
By Roger Moore
The charms of “How To Train Your Dragon” are thinned a bit for its sequel, a cartoon with better animation and livelier action, if fewer jokes. And if there’s one thing these sweet-message/great flying sequence movies don’t need, it’s fewer jokes.
The misfit, inventive and now one-legged Viking teen Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his pet Night Fury dragon, Toothless, are living with other Vikings and other dragons in utter harmony on the island of Berk. Their days are taken up with Dragon Racing, a dragon-mounted chase game that’s reminiscent of Hogwarts’ sport, Quiddich, with catapulted sheep as the ball to be battled over.
Hiccup’s dad, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), still has the kid’s ascent to the chiefdom of Berk in mind. But Hiccup would rather ride like the wind with Toothless.