How to Train Your Dragon (dir. Dean DeBlois)
Certificate: PG
Running Time: 126 mins
UK Distributor: Universal Pictures
UK Release Date: 9 June 2025
WHO’S IN HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON?
Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Ruth Codd, Peter Serafinowicz, Murray McArthur
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Dean DeBlois (director, writer, producer), Marc Platt and Adam Siegel (producers), John Powell (composer), Bill Pope (cinematographer), Wyatt Smith (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Hiccup (Thames), a young Viking, befriends a feared dragon named Toothless…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON?
Et tu, DreamWorks? Just because your main competitor is making serious bank off of remaking their animated classics into live-action products doesn’t mean that you have to do that as well. In fact, you could have taken the high road and resisted the urge to translate your most cherished hits into something that would arguably never carry the emotional or artistic weight of what came before. But no, you just had to go all Gus Van Sant with remaking How to Train Your Dragon shot-for-shot, line-for-line, through and through the exact same movie, immediately rendering it pointless when there’s a perfectly good – great, even – animated version of it that’s already widely available.
And yet, how else could one do a live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon? It’s too beloved a movie to stray far from the original source without risking the ire of its seriously dedicated fanbase, so if you’re going to remake a film like this then you might as well be as faithful to it as possible, even if it is to a redundant fault. Director Dean DeBois, also the helmer of the original animated trilogy, also seems to recognise that there’s no point in fixing what isn’t broke (though in that case, why not just leave the original be?), and to his credit puts as much passion and emotion into this live-action version as he (and co-director Chris Sanders) did on the 2010 original.
So, if you love everything about the original, from its story to the characters to the dialogue to the visual designs to John Powell’s musical score, then there’s no reason to not love what’s in this film, except with actual people – and not nearly as solid a purpose.
Once again, the story takes place on the Viking island of Berk, where Hiccup (Mason Thames), the scrawny young son of his village’s chieftain Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his role from the animated films), finds himself caught in the middle of his father’s endless war against dragons, especially after he manages to take down and destabilise a rare Night Fury dragon, despite everyone’s lack of faith in his abilities. His compassion, though, leads him to spare the dragon, whom he names Toothless after, well, his seeming lack of teeth, and manages to learn a great deal from about the overall nature of dragons, which goes against everything he and his fellow Vikings have known for generations. Soon, along with his fellow dragon-fighting students including the ambitious Astrid (Nico Parker), Hiccup sets out to show everyone – especially his father – that dragons are not as dangerous as they’ve been led to believe.
Most of my criticisms towards How to Train Your Dragon circa 2025, both positive and negative, are more or less the exact same as what I think of the original film, because they really are that symbiotically attached to one another. Luckily, there’s a lot to like about it, including a story that adopts a template that is certainly familiar – that of two warring sides finding common ground and uniting against a common enemy, previously used by the likes of Avatar, Dances with Wolves and Disney’s Pocahontas (a film that you’d think Disney would have turned into live-action by now) – and gives it some serious dramatic weight, thanks to characters who are well-written and given enough charm and personality to stand out, thereby making this well-trodden narrative feel fresh and exciting once more. But again, it’s all been done before.
The script, which DeBlois also provides here, treats it all with a profound maturity (save for some juvenile gags, many of which are thankfully dialled down in this version) that boldly refuses to talk down to its audience or sugarcoat some of the harsher aspects, including a very late physical development involving one main character that is quite shocking to think that they were able to go ahead with in a major family-friendly release. There are also some breathtakingly shot sequences where we follow Hiccup and Toothless through the skies and just above the seas that almost feel like you’re on a rollercoaster, which Powell’s similarly gliding score further highlights the sheer thrill of just from watching it. But again, it’s all been done before.
In terms of what actually is different about this live-action version, there really isn’t much, aside from a couple of extended scenes that get into some additional character background and expanding some of the Viking lore, but even those are far and few in between. Beyond that, everything else is just as you remember it, from the awkward father-son dynamics between idealistic Hiccup and his stubborn father Stoick (which actors Thames and Butler are able to effectively convey through their own committed turns) to the intricate and slightly upscaled designs of the dragons themselves, to of course Toothless being utterly adorable, even when interacting with real people. But again… oh, you know the drill.
In the end, the real question to ask here is: why? I mean, we all know why – *cash_register_noise.mp3* – but seriously, when you have this exact movie already in existence, one that frankly never needed to be tampered with in the first place, then why bother going to all this effort, arguably more than even the majority of Disney’s live-action remakes, to do it all again if it’s neither better nor worse than what came before? At least the filmmakers behind this one put a considerable amount of passion into making it, which is a lot more than can be said about most of what has been coming out of Disney’s gate the last few years. DeBlois does have a decent handle on translating the action to reality, with practical sets and rather impressive CGI helping it to avoid overly cartoonish comparisons, and the filmmaker retains much of the heart from his original movies, which the new (and old) cast deliver with an admirable earnestness.
But no matter the dedication, this really is How to Train Your Dragon… Again, and your enjoyment of it is going to depend entirely on whether you like the original or not, because if you do, then you’re in luck for this is exactly what you love about it, no more and no less. And that is precisely why I’ve given it as high a star rating as I have, though with some halves docked for it being, well, this – and yes, I am gesturing to all of this movie.
SO, TO SUM UP…
How to Train Your Dragon is a live-action remake that is faithful to a fault, for it follows the original so closely in terms of shots, story, character development and design that it’s impossible to not compare the two, as this version carries many of the same multiple strengths and few weaknesses that, while done with more passion than most other live-action remakes, makes it all the more unnecessary, even though it is still an admittedly emotional and rather well-done rendition.
Other recent reviews:
0 Comments