There are plenty of instances where Hollywood attempts and fails to reinfuse life into a beloved classic with a live-action remake. However, How to Train Your Dragon isn’t one to do that. Instead, it’s a fun and vibrant movie that showcases just how amazing the original is and why it works in live-action.
Dean DeBois returns to the director’s chair after helming the trilogy to re-adapt the animated films into live-action. Not many animated movies lend themselves to translate well into live-action, but in the case of How to Train Your Dragon, it works in bringing this world to life. What DeBois has done right is respect the material without messing up what made the original films great.
Following the same story as the first animated feature, How to Train Your Dragon tells the journey of young Hiccup, who befriends a harmless dragon whom he names “Toothless,” while his community has been at war against dragons for centuries.
Seeing that not all dragons are as dangerous as they appear to be, it is up to him to broker a peace between the Vikings and these high-flying creatures. Whether it’s told in animation or live-action, the story is still very good.
What the live-action film does right is the creation of the world and the overall look of the dragons. It all looks very much like the animated film.
Toothless is exactly like the original version and acts the same way. All the dragons shown in the new version work so well as their live-action counterparts. Rather than going for a realistic version of these creatures, the new film makes the wise choice of not changing the design from the animation and keeping their looks the same.
Another difficult task is casting the human characters that fans are familiar with, and being able to recreate them as the animated versions.
It doesn’t seem to be the case here as Mason Thames is cast perfectly as our main character, Hiccup, by sticking to what audiences love about the character and making it his own. Even having Gerard Butler return as Hiccup’s father from the animation is a great choice since he plays the character so well in both versions, perhaps even stealing the movie with his presence.
The rest of the cast also embody their characters so well without overstepping what went well with their animated counterparts.
Nico Parker fits into the armor as Astrid well, making it her own and sharing some great chemistry with Mason, as it did in the original film. Even the rest of the gang act similarly to the animated versions, like Julian Dennison’s knowledgeable Fishlegs or the dynamic duo of Ruffnut and Tuffnut played by Harry Trevaldwyn and Bronwyn James, respectively.
This is by far a shot-for-shot reimagining of the animation, which is not an issue if it is done by the same director who respects and loves this franchise. DeBois has taken so much time to build the animated films, and does the same with this live-action version.
Understandably, not many changes were given to make this film unique, but it is also easy to mess up what made the original movie great, so keeping things the same comes off as a great way to tell this story. Whatever changes were made are pretty minor, like adding some development to some main and side characters as well as expanding the mythology overall.
The production value of this film is incredible, and the original score just hits the same way as it did in the 2010 movie. Bringing back composer John Powell to recreate the music is a good way to get fans back into this colorful and vibrant world filled with Vikings and dragons.
The live-action How to Train Your Dragon is a great reimagining of the animated version that is nearly identical in every facet. Seeing this again through a new lens still has the same effect as the original, all due to DeBois’s passion for the story that he told many years ago. There’s so much love and care given to this movie about the friendship between a boy and his dragon.
How to Train Your Dragon is now playing in theaters.
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