How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
On the isle of Berk, Vikings and dragons have long been enemies, but when Hiccup (Mason Thames, "The Black Phone"), the son of Chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, 2010's "How to Train Your Dragon"), befriends a fearsome Night Fury he names Toothless, the young man effects a paradigm shift by showing fellow villagers "How to Train Your Dragon."
Laura's Review: B-
Dreamworks Animation jumps onto Disney's live action remake bandwagon and while the original 2010's animation writer/director Dean DeBlois hasn't made a bad film, there doesn't seem much reason artistically for it to exist, especially given its excess thirty minutes of run time to tell the exact same story (click on the link to the original review for a description of the story, in which even small gags are identical). The flying scenes still retain their magic a second time around, even if Toothless looks exactly the same as it did in the animation. The new rendition's best asset is Mason Thames, who brings a lot of underdog charm to the live action Hiccup, but the remainder of the teenaged dragon slayer hopefuls (Nico Parker's Astrid (whose lips look distractingly artificially enhanced), Julian Dennison's Fishlegs, Gabriel Howell's Snoutlout, and Bronwyn James and Harry Trevaldwyn's Ruffnut and Tuffnut) have nothing on their animated counterparts. "Shaun of the Dead's" Nick Frost ably takes over from Craig Ferguson as the blacksmith Gobber, but that charming Scottish accent is missed.
The production utilizes a lot of fire as the dragons attack a village that looks designed for Universal's amusement park, as do costumes which feature Viking helmets which bear the signs of modern manufacture. Bill Pope's cinematography emphasizes the joy and terror of flying on a dragon's back, although the climax is obscured by a lot of smoke, perhaps in lieu of CGI. Makeup is mostly comprised of wigs and exaggerated facial hair, Gobber's voluminous moustache and braided beard modeled on the animation versus historical accuracy, which may have been the wiser choice in a movie about dragons but also fails to separate this version from its predecessor. Original composer John Powell's score does what is needed.
One's enjoyment of this second version of "How to Train Your Dragon" is likely to depend on whether one has seen the animation or not. But while it doesn't deserve rotten tomatoes, it is also difficult to get too enthused about its existence.
Universal releases its live action remake of "How to Train Your Dragon" in theaters on 6/13/25.
