Back in 2019, I made an effort to catch up on the How to Train Your Dragon movies so I could see the third and final installment in the series without feeling like I was missing something. They weren’t my absolute favorites, but they were actually rather charming and clever in their own way. And who couldn’t love Toothless the Nightfury? Well, I’m sure lots of people don’t, but that’s neither here nor there.
All that is to say that there’s a new, live-action remake of the original animated feature because why can’t someone other than Disney remake an animated movie with live actors and CGI?
Hiccup (Mason Thames), is the clumsy son of Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his role from the original animated movie). Stoick is the Viking chieftain of Berk, an island-based village of dragon hunters who came from all over the globe to battle the many, many dragons that seem to be in the area. Hiccup would like nothing more than to be a dragon-killer like pretty much every other resident of Berk, particularly his crush, Astrid (Nico Parker). About the only one who might believe in Hiccup is the one-armed, one-legged blacksmith Gobber (Nick Frost). And that’s a big maybe. But then during a night attack, Hiccup uses an invention of his own design to shoot down an elusive Nightfury dragon. True, no one saw him do it. No one believed he did it. But he does get to join in with the other (including Astrid) youngsters in dragon-killing training while Stoick leads yet another expedition to find the dragons’ nest.
However, Hiccup is convinced he did hit that Nightfury and goes looking for it. He finds the injured dragon and can’t quite bring himself to kill the creature. Instead, he befriends the dragon, naming it “Toothless,” and eventually fashioning a device to allow Toothless to fly again with Hiccup himself in a saddle on the animal’s back. This sort of thinking is not something that ever happened before on Berk. It also means that Hiccup actually knows more about dragons than anyone else on the island. Can he find a way to get the vikings and the dragons to find peace together?
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this one going into it. The movie was directed by Dean DeBlois, director of the original animated trilogy, and as near as I can make out, it is a very close remake. The plot is basically the same with some minor changes from what I can remember. That said, it is still a charming story. Thames sounds like he might be doing a Jay Baruchel impression, and I think some of the fake hair could have looked a little more realistic, but on its own terms, this is a pleasant little movie. I mean, I will never say no to something with Nick Frost. Unlike, say, various Disney remakes, I don’t think there’s anything here that seems like a questionable change to the original narrative or anything along those lines. It is very faithful to the original movie.
That, in and of itself, is the problem. I am of the belief that a remake should be one for two reasons. First, it should not a commonly-accepted classic though that one can be negotiable. Second, and more importantly, it should seem to have an artistic reason to exist. Something this faithfully remade, no matter how well made, doesn’t have a reason to exist beyond making money at the box office and maybe something involving copyright. The original How to Train Your Dragon came out 15 years ago, and I couldn’t help but think that they could have just re-released the original to theaters for an anniversary and called it a day.
Grade: C+
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