How To Train Your Drag­on review – nev­er quite catch­es the updraft need­ed to soar to unchart­ed heights

Live-action remakes have come to dom­i­nate the kick­off of the sum­mer movie sea­son. Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, the cre­ative duo behind ear­ly 2000s ani­mat­ed hits Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Drag­on, have gone their sep­a­rate ways, each now attempt­ing to win the hearts of long­time fans and a new gen­er­a­tion of movie­go­ers through live-action adap­ta­tions of their beloved ani­mat­ed clas­sics. While Sanders has stepped back into the record­ing booth to reprise the voice of his mis­chie­vous alien cre­ation, Stitch, DeBlois takes the reins as direc­tor of Dream­Works’ first ever live-action remake, steer­ing the project in its entirety.

A live-action remake car­ries far more to answer for than an orig­i­nal film or even a sequel. In the case of How to Train Your Drag­on, the adap­ta­tion large­ly fol­lows its source mate­r­i­al beat for beat, rais­ing the ques­tion: what does the use of real actors and CGI bring to the table that ani­ma­tion does not and can that added tan­gi­bil­i­ty tru­ly offer an expe­ri­ence that sur­pass­es the mag­ic the orig­i­nal still holds to this day?

Like every­one else in the Viking com­mu­ni­ty on the Isle of Berk, Hic­cup (Mason Thames) longs to prove him­self by slay­ing the drag­ons that ter­ror­ize his vil­lage, set­ting rogue fires and mak­ing off with their live­stock. But when he final­ly comes face-to-face with a Night Fury, one of the most feared and elu­sive breeds of drag­on, the moment that should define his brav­ery once and for all reveals some­thing deep­er. Blade in hand, he fal­ters, not out of fear, but out of empa­thy, and makes a choice that sets him on a path no one in his tribe could understand.

Unlike his peers, such as Astrid (Nico Park­er) – one of the tribe’s most promis­ing young mem­bers – Hic­cup strug­gles to meet the expec­ta­tions of his father, Sto­ick, the tribe’s for­mi­da­ble chief. Time and again, Sto­ick is frus­trat­ed and embar­rassed by his son’s per­ceived lack of tough­ness. But what Sto­ick doesn’t real­ize is that Hiccup’s empa­thy and inven­tive mind may be exact­ly what their com­mu­ni­ty needs to survive.

Slow­ly but sure­ly, Hic­cup begins to train and heal the Night Fury he names Tooth­less, inspired by the dragon’s retractable teeth and endear­ing, gum­my expres­sion. As fans of the orig­i­nal will remem­ber, Toothless’s behav­ior was famous­ly mod­eled after a cat, and this adap­ta­tion pre­serves that play­ful, curi­ous ener­gy, empha­siz­ing the time­less dynam­ic of a boy and his pet. The bond that forms between Hic­cup and Tooth­less remains the film’s unde­ni­able heart, just as it was in the ani­mat­ed classic.

What tru­ly sets this live-action adap­ta­tion apart from its ani­mat­ed pre­de­ces­sor is the height­ened sense of dan­ger, dri­ven not by changes to the sto­ry but by the drag­ons’ new designs. Ren­dered with CGI, the crea­tures feel vis­cer­al and impos­ing, their scale and tex­tures giv­ing them a phys­i­cal pres­ence that ani­ma­tion could only sug­gest. As Hic­cup, Astrid, and the rest of the teen trainees come of age and step into the per­ilous task of drag­on train­ing, the stakes feel sharp­er. The threat of harm is real, and in the character’s inter­ac­tions with the drag­ons is a more intense sense of fear and awe.

Mason Thames proves him­self a strong choice to take up the man­tle of Hic­cup, cap­tur­ing the character’s essence both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. He embod­ies Hiccup’s awk­ward charm, intel­li­gence, and qui­et empa­thy, though notably with­out the character’s icon­ic nasal voice (pro­vid­ed by Jay Baruchel in the ani­mat­ed films). Nico Park­er deliv­ers a faith­ful por­tray­al of Astrid, serv­ing as a fierce and ground­ed foil to Hic­cup, and togeth­er form a bud­ding roman­tic ten­sion that feels authen­tic. Notably, Ger­ard But­ler effort­less­ly repris­es the role of Sto­ick, bring­ing a nat­ur­al author­i­ty to the char­ac­ter he has already shaped for years.

On the whole, the live-action How to Train Your Drag­on plays it extreme­ly safe. It’s per­fect­ly pass­able, but only because it close­ly mir­rors a nar­ra­tive that’s already well-loved. Rather than evolve or reimag­ine, it deliv­ers a near car­bon copy of the orig­i­nal, and in doing so, los­es some of the whim­si­cal charm that made the ani­mat­ed ver­sion so spe­cial. What it does offer is visu­al rich­ness in the form of stun­ning, tac­tile land­scapes and impres­sive­ly ren­dered CGI that give the world a more ground­ed and cin­e­mat­ic feel. Still, there’s lit­tle here that dis­tin­guish­es it enough to become the defin­i­tive ver­sion. For most audi­ences, it’s hard to imag­ine this remake replac­ing or even rival­ing the original.