The second consecutive movie that is a sequel to a movie I have not seen. Also the second consecutive movie that I have found to be sorely lacking in quality. One of my main issues with the film was something that bothered me in the trailers I'd seen, but the other problems I had with it were all discovered while watching.
The complaint that I knew I would have about the film going into it (the result of the trailer showing before practically every single film for the past couple months) was, as alluded to in my preview, the main character's annoying voice. I'm no expert when it comes to Jay Baruchel's filmography, but I've seen him in a few things and he hasn't bothered me before. But in this film I found his voice to be grating to the point that I outwardly cringed every time his character started to open his mouth. The nasally tone of his voice and his unnatural speech patterns (it sounds like he is trying to swallow every word) may work fine for the comedic relief roles he usually plays, but, at least to me, they are not a good fit for a leading character in anything but a straight comedy. It also didn't help that his character sometimes made inexplicably irrational decisions for no purpose other than to artificially get the plot started or drive it forward. When he finds out about the Big Bad and his Evil Plan, he insists on tracking him down to talk him out of it. This is in spite of the fact that he knows nothing about the villain while other characters who do warn him that his plan will not work. There's idealism, which can be admired, and then there's complete boneheaded stupidity, which cannot. I found it impossible to get behind and root for a character that was this ludicrously dumb. And there was no reason for it. The writers just couldn't think of a better way to get their story started, so they decided to hand their lead character the Idiot Ball.
This was a recurring problem that was the primary factor in ruining the movie for me. The film was full of things that made no sense and existed solely to further the plot. The bad guy's plan (the motivations of which are thin to begin with) depends on his dragon being able to control other dragons (their eyes go weird and everything). Why is it able to do this. It is never explained. Sadly, this leads to the audience having to endure the predictable and clichéd "Even though you're possessed, I know you're in there somewhere and will snap out of it because we're such good friends" scene. It is also never explained how the villain controls his big, bad, mind-controlling dragon in the first place. It's never even brought up. I don't mind that the film has a fairly loose narrative, with events leading from one to the other with little time for character growth. Films like that can be fun. But if you're going to go with a loose, fast-paced narrative like that, you'd better make sure that each of the events makes sense, at least until the viewer realizes the plot holes on the way home from the theater. I didn't have to wait that long. Each contrivance was evident the moment it occurred.
I'll confess that I feel like a bit of a dick for my complaints regarding the main character's voice--I wouldn't like it if someone made similar complaints about me. Still, I feel that in reviewing a film, if there was something in it that really bothered me, I'm obligated to address it. If the film had a (much) more well-written screenplay that moved logically from scene to scene without the need for character and plot contrivances, I might have been able to overlook the voice. Instead, the sloppiness of the movie as a whole made each individual aspect that fell short all the more glaring.
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