“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” the third installment in the series, does a nice job of bringing the franchise to a close in what is sure to be a crowd-pleasing way. It does this, however, at the expense of a story.

At the end of the second film, Hiccup had become the leader of Berk after the death of his father, Stoick. Berk is now a utopia where dragons and humans live together, if not always easily due to the dragons’ size and behavior.

The movie begins with Hiccup and his often incompetent but effective sidekicks, each with their own dragon as mounts, saving other dragons from the hands of other Vikings. As attention is drawn to their activities, Berk becomes a target for those who believe that the only good dragon is a dead dragon.

Grimmel is a famed dragon-hunter. He especially wants to slay a Night Fury, a special type of dragon. His intended prey is Toothless, Hiccup’s friend. Grimmel has captured a white female Night Fury for the purpose of luring Toothless to his doom.

One night Grimmel stages an attack on Berk that convinces Hiccup that the entire village must move to a more obscure location. This is not as difficult as it sounds given that dragons can fly and the Vikings have ships.

Hiccup remembers that his father used to talk about the “Hidden World” that sits at the edge of the earth beneath waterfalls. So Hiccup and the villagers head out and take temporary refuge on a hilly island.

Meanwhile love is in the air. (This film could have been released on Valentine’s Day.) Toothless is smitten with his paramour, who Astrid has labeled the Light Fury. Astrid herself has her eye on Hiccup, who is being pressured to marry her. Unlike Toothless, he is more circumspect and seems reluctant to tie the knot.

After Toothless runs off with his lady love, Hiccup and Astrid use her dragon to find the Hidden World. It is a beautiful place occupied only by dragons, who do not want the two humans there. Rescued by Toothless, Hiccup now must decide if he can let Toothless, and perhaps the other dragons, permanently go to their new-found paradise. But first they need to watch out for the sneaky Grimmel.

The animation is top-notch again. The scenes of luminescence as you enter the Hidden World are spectacular. The Hidden World itself is a panoply of vibrant colors and geometric shapes. The dynamics of dragon flight and dragon fire are wonderfully portrayed.

The same cannot be said for the story. In the previous two movies, we have seen Hiccup, voiced by Jay Baruchel, deal with his self-doubts about his ability to be a leader of his people. These same worries are once more present and have become old and trite. The sheer predictability that you know that he will overcome his problems makes enduring them tedious.

The romance between the dragons is funny and carefree. The same cannot be said for the liaison between Astrid, voiced by America Ferrara, and Hiccup. There is virtually no sense of chemistry at all between the leads. It is no wonder that Hiccup is not rushing to the altar.

Grimmel, voiced by F. Murray Abraham, is an annoying villain. He suffers from the screenwriter’s plague of creating a character who is unbeatable until he isn’t. The fact that Grimmel cannot just slay Toothless but has to prolong the hunt for his own satisfaction smacks of the nemeses of the 1960’s “Batman” series who couldn’t just kill Batman without devising some elaborate mechanism to do so that always failed. Abraham also gives Grimmel an annoying Dracula-like accent that seems totally out of place in this picture.

Most of the other characters in the village of Berk get very little screen time, and for some of them, less would have been better. The scenes with Tuffnut, voiced by Justin Rupple, as a dispenser of love advice to Hiccup, and the ones with Snoutlout, voiced by Jonah Hill, in love with Hiccup’s mother Valka, could have been excised from the film with no ill effect. The only redeeming character is Ruffnut, voiced by Kristen Wiig, Tuffnut’s sister. The way that her Valley-Girl-like patter grates on Grimmel after he captures her is a highlight.

All of this is not to dispute that the stock love stories should have mass appeal to families. This is a tried-and-true formula worthy of a Disney film. If you think that you do not know how this movie ends, you are thinking too hard.

Although quite a bit of time has elapsed between the different installments, thanks to the magic of streaming and DVD’s today’s younger audience can be up-to-date on the stories leading up to this one. The picture is appropriate for all ages, although there are some intense action scenes. Very young children will probably be bored by the love stories, such as they are, though.

As a retired librarian, I also feel obligated to point out that this movie franchise is based on a series of books by Cressida Cowell. So these films provide a nice segue to reading and literacy.

So this is a very average film with excellent animation. It should have been more Hidden World, less real world and more dragons, less humans. Truly, it deserves two-and-a-half out of five stars. But I am willing to concede bumping it up a half point to three stars for its superb visual style.

From DreamWorks Animation comes a surprising tale about growing up, finding the courage to face the unknown … and how nothing can ever train you to let go. What began as an unlikely friendship between an adolescent Viking and a fearsome Night Fury dragon has become an epic adventure spanning their lives. Welcome to the most astonishing chapter of one of the most beloved animated franchises in film history: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

Now chief and ruler of Berk alongside Astrid, Hiccup has created a gloriously chaotic dragon utopia. When the sudden appearance of a female Light Fury coincides with the darkest threat their village has ever faced, Hiccup and Toothless must leave the only home they’ve known and journey to a hidden world thought only to exist in myth. As their true destines are revealed, dragon and rider will fight together—to the very ends of the Earth—to protect everything they’ve grown to treasure.

Cast: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, Kit Harington, and F. Murray Abraham

Director: Dean DeBlois

Writer: Dean DeBlois, based on the books of Cressida Cowell