Stream It Or Skip It?

Truth: How to Train Your Dragon (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) is very good. But it does nothing to cool down the debate over the validity of live-action remakes of animated films – “live-action” being a rather loose term for “heaps and heaps of CGI with real actors.” This is the most notable such movie unaffiliated with the master of these things, Disney, which has churned out updates of classics with a disconcerting fervor. Some of them justified their existence – The Jungle Book and Cinderella were reinvigorations of familiar stories – and others were either pointless and creepy (Mufasa) or confused thematic updates caught up in the fervor of the wokeness debate (Snow White was a gigantic mess). Dreamworks’ new Dragon is directed by Dean DeBlois, who helmed all three of the series’ animated films, and frankly hasn’t made a significant change to the story, which has us wondering: Does it truly justify its existence? And the answer, as ever, is yes and no. Because we live in ambiguous times, my friends.

The Gist: “We don’t run from fights – we start ’em.” This is a lament disguised as a statement of fact, courtesy of Hiccup (Mason Thames, The Black Phone), the flimsiest Viking in the village of Berk, whose chieftain is his not-at-all-proud behemoth father, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, who voiced the same character in the animated films). Here, killing dragons is everything – they swoop down on the city and snatch up livestock and belch fire, and there’s all manner of spears and fire and shouting and sharp things for a while and then the dragons leave and then the Vikings go to the dragons’ home and fight in a different setting for a while. It’s been like this for years, Vikings vs. dragons, fight fight war war battle battle belch fart belch. It’s not exactly the greatest cultural lifestyle, and Hiccup is outside of it. Stoick thinks the kid will get killed if he tries to participate, and he’s probably right. Hiccup has been othered. He tries to fit in, fashioning neat weapons and such, but he’s not good at any of this, and if we can read into it a little, maybe he’s a better person for it?

The movie gets into a bit of dragon lore, outlining the types of dragons and what they can do, etc. The nasty one is dubbed the Night Fury, for the pitch-black scales that allow it to attack at night without being seen. It also never, ever misses with its bursts of flame. One night during battle, Hiccup rolls out a bola launcher he designed, fires it at a Night Fury – and hits it. He ventures into the wood the next morn and finds the creature tangled in the bola, one of its tail rudders shorn off. He pulls out his knife to kill the dragon like a REAL VIKING would do – but can’t go through with it. And so it becomes a thorn-in-the-lion’s-paw situation where he unties the beast, earns its respect, befriends it and learns all kinds of things about dragon behavior and culture. He names the dude Toothless. Affection grows, mutually. And before you know it, Hiccup has fitted Toothless tail with a prosthetic rudder and a saddle, and is riding the blue skies with his new pal.

This is all happening in secret, of course. Imagine the shame if people knew he was fraternizing with the enemy! While Stoick takes the Viking hordes to get their asses whupped in the dragons’ land, Hiccup stays behind to participate in a dragon-killing class run by Stoick’s right-hand guy Gobber (Nick Frost). Hiccup doesn’t fit in with his fellow teens, who are all gung-ho about murdering the crap outta the enemy: There’s the braggart Snotlout (Gabriel Howell), nerdy Fishlegs (Julian Dennison), fraternal twin louts Tuffnut (Harry Trevaldwyn) and Ruffnut (Bronwyn James) and – deep dreamy sigh – Astrid (Nico Parker), the smartest and most ambitious of the bunch, who’d love to follow Stoick as chieftain. Of course, Hiccup has a secret crush on Astrid. Who wouldn’t?

Hiccup’s knowledge of Toothless’ behavior leads to him subduing dragons with nonviolent means, outpacing his classmates – and Astrid is suspicious. She follows him. Sees him romping around with a Night Fury. Questions him. Threatens him. Goes for a ride with him on the back of a swooping dragon – and then sympathizes with him. She finds Hiccup’s earnestness disarming. And he’s increasingly worried that his father’s dragon-killing M.O. is so wrongheaded, it’ll lead to unending war. He doesn’t know how to share his knowledge and pacifism. “I’m the only Viking that doesn’t want to kill a dragon,” he laments to Astrid. Her reply? “First to ride one, though.”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Similar things happened with Lilo and Stitch in its transition from animation to, uh, “live action.” (Note, DeBlois directed the original Lilo.) Otherwise, it’s sort of the unholy offspring of The Northman, The Desolation of Smaug and Harry Potter.

Performance Worth Watching: Cornetto Trilogy veteran and very funny guy Frost is charismatic and funny as the goofy Gobber. 

Memorable Dialogue: Gobber cuts deep when he relays how Stoick feels about Hiccup: “It’s no so much what you look like, it’s what’s inside of you he can’t stand.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: This How to Train Your Dragon is such a scalding-hot fricassee of mixed feelings. It’s often shot-by-shot, line-by-line the same as the original movie. But it also replicates its emotional beats exquisitely. We can analyze the necessity of it all we want, but it’s the moment that we feel something that ultimately counts. Its ability to make the heart swell with joy and vigor is a testament to a beautifully crafted, thoughtfully layered story. Parsing the way one film is better or worse than the other not only is no fun whatsoever, but it also just doesn’t seem as important when its themes shine through with such brilliant clarity: Conservation and kindness over aggression. Building something instead of destroying things. The importance of listening in interpersonal communication. The assertion that tradition is not necessarily truth. 

And in Hiccup’s story – in his decision to do the right thing despite great difficulty instead of, say, just running away – is a quest for enlightenment that’s about hope triumphing over despair. Armed with knowledge instead of spears and swords, he tasks himself with redefining the Vikings’ objective truth. Before she fully understands Hiccup’s point-of-view, Astrid states, “You – you live in a different world.” But she eventually realizes it could be her world too, and a better one. Suss out whatever metaphors you want, for colonialism or dominion, or a criticism of human solipsism and arrogance. They’re in the subtext if you desire to peruse them. 

We could debate the visual efficacy of the new and original films; as beautiful a work of art and craftsmanship the 2025 version can be, the original’s animation is more fluid and obviously untethered by the mechanics of live-action filmmaking, especially in action sequences. The opening sequence of the new version is disappointingly dim-lit, and one of the core moments of the film, Hiccup soaring majestically over landscapes on Toothless’ back, is choppily edited, and a far bumpier ride. Similar nitpicks may be directed at the big final kaflooey, when some of the thematic threads are lost in the presence of an alpha-dragon roughly the size of Kansas City, a transparent attempt to ratchet up the excitement and sense of scale. At that point things get a bit loud and frantic, but that feeling of emotional elevation is intact, and that’s crucial. This Dragon’s uplift is undeniable, and if anything, it asserts that the 2010 animation might need an upgrade from “favorite” to “classic.”

Our Call: Bottom line: The animated How to Train Your Dragon is about nine percent better. That still leaves the new one firmly in the 80-out-of-100 range. If we must have “live-action” remakes for the sake of crass capitalism, let them be more like this. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.