THE out-of-nowhere smash "How to Train Your Dragon" was one of the first movies to break the Pixar monopoly on first-rate animation. Still, we know what franchising does to animated movies, so we half-expected this newly minted profit center to come down with a case...

[b The sequel is gleeful and smart, funny and serious, and surpasses the endearing original with gorgeous animation and one stirring human encounter after another[/b Most sequels get made for commercial reasons, whether or not the world needs them. "How to Train Your...

From the fashionable day-old scruff on Hiccup's 20-year-old Viking chin to the amped-up fire power of Toothless, "How to Train Your Dragon 2" has made good use of the years since the villagers of Berk and the boy who'd rather not be chief first charmed us. The growing...