How to Train Your Dragon opens in theaters Friday, June 13.
Live-action adaptations of beloved animated movies are a dime a dozen these days; hell, Disney has released two of them before 2025 is even half over. But the new How to Train Your Dragon has some novelty going for it: It’s the first time one of these remakes shares a director with the original that inspired it. And by hewing so close to that tale of the young Viking Hiccup and his friendship with the gentle dragon Toothless, Dean DeBlois creates the additionally odd situation of being incredibly faithful to, well, himself. Though it contains expanded roles for a few side characters, the 2025 How to Train Your Dragon is remarkably similar to the 2010 version DeBlois made alongside Chris Sanders, often playing like a shot-for-shot re-creation.
Given my own familiarity with How to Train Your Dragon, the new one did feel like a copy. With so many of the action sequences, gags, and lines of dialogue carrying over, how could it not? But it also crucially recaptures the compelling core of the saga of Hiccup (played here by Mason Thames) attempting to broker peace between his people and Toothless’ fire-breathing kin. Whether it’s being acted out by digital pixels or flesh-and-blood humans, that’s a good story. And it’s what helps DeBlois and company land a pretty solid re-do of How to Train Your Dragon.
The first third is probably the most awkward and hardest to adjust to – some of the slapstick goofiness just feels strained and out of place in live-action. This is where Thames’ likeable, sympathetic take on Hiccup comes in handy, acting as a grounding force amid the cartoon wackiness. Not that it’s all that different from Jay Baruchel’s rendition of the character across multiple movies and TV series set on the mythical isle of Berk. It often feels like Thames is doing his best to make his voice resemble the animated Hiccup’s – and doing a decent job of it, honestly.
Nico Parker is suitably scrappy and charismatic in the role of Astrid, the tough-as-nails young warrior who Hiccup crushes on. But it’s Gerard Butler who makes the biggest impression, reprising his portrayal of Hiccup’s father, Stoick. At first, it’s hard not to chuckle at the star of 300 and Olympus Has Fallen sporting a giant horned helmet and beard, but he’s giving a genuinely great performance from beneath all that hair and headgear. He obviously knows Stoick inside and out at this point, and taps into the stubborn-yet-loving core of the character. He and Thames work very well together, bringing some real feeling to Hiccup and Stoick’s arguments about whether Vikings and dragons can coexist. (He has a great rapport with Nick Frost as Stoick’s trusted friend Gobber, too.)
By sticking to the same plot points and resolutions – Vikings fight dragons, Hiccup learns dragons aren’t to be feared, dragons and VIkings team up to fight one big dragon – the screenplay for this How to Train Your Dragon plays things pretty safe. The town’s elder, Gothi (Naomi Wirthner), has a more significant part, and there’s a small subplot for the father-son duo of Spitelout (Peter Serafinowicz) and Snotlout (Gabriel Howell). But these added touches don’t stray far from the original. This results in a less interesting film than, say, the new Lilo & Stitch (another recent live-action remake of a DeBlois and Sanders team-up, coincidentally), albeit one that still works as a touching spin on the story we already know. Guiding his first live-action feature film, DeBlois shows a knack for directing actors, and he handles action really well, including a couple of key sequences where Hiccup and Toothless soar through the air. Though, as with so much of How to Train Your Dragon, the director is largely replicating decisions he and Sanders made 15 years ago.
How he’s translated the intangibles of the original shouldn’t be taken for granted. You can restage all the iconic scenes of an animated classic in live-action and still lose all their impact and enchantment in the process – I’m looking at you, Lion King 2019. But for all of its blatant mimicry, DeBlois’ remake captures the heart and soul of How to Train Your Dragon Version 1.0. John Powell’s revamped score is also a major contributor: The composer is another case of someone basically covering their own work here, but damn if “Test Drive” – the theme that kicks in during Hiccup’s first successful flight with Toothless – doesn’t elicit a rush every time it plays. The story of Hiccup and Toothless’ bond is just that potent. DeBlois may be overly reverential to his past success, but he still clearly has a lot of love for these characters, and his investment in them shines through. It’s hard not to have a reaction to Hiccup and Toothless proving how far they’re willing to go for one another – even if you might already know exactly what that will entail.
