Of the variety of subgenres that have emerged as Hollywood scrambles for IP-driven safe bets to replace the ailing superhero multiverses, none feel as openly, cravenly money-grubbing as the live-action remakes. From megahits like Lion King to desperate flops like Snow White, it’s an ever-expanding field of pointless downgrades. Into this crowd now comes How To Train Your Dragon, live-action-ifying an animates series that started just 15 years ago and had its threequel release as recently as 2019. The result is, predictably, devoid of any of its own originality or creativity, but *just* enough of the magic of the original has snuck through to keep it from feeling as outright offensive as a lot of its stablemates.
Helmed by director of the animated originals Dean DeBlois, here making his live-action debut, the 2025 HTTYD is a beat-for-beat, shot-for-shot copy of the 2010 original (if you want some extra despair about the state of Hollywood, with the recent Lilo and Stitch, this isn’t even the only DeBlois animation remake currently in cinemas). We still have the dragon-hunting Viking island of Berk, we still have the dweeby but resourceful Hiccup (Mason Thames) building a friendship with adorable cat-lizard-dragon Toothless, we even still have Gerard Butler, reprising his voice role as Hiccup’s stuck-in-his-ways chieftain father Stoick the Vast.
Though, for whatever reason, the 2025 edition runs longer than its source material, there really isn’t a single surprise here. Everything, from the designs to the dialogue to the wholesale recycling of John Powell’s (admittedly excellent) score, is painfully familiar and often actually just worse. Character beats and gags that were charming and funny in animated form are off-putting in live action, while the visuals are just way murkier and less inviting (the animated version had Roger Deakins consulting on how to light and frame scenes, everything in the live action is just sludge in comparison).
To be fair, the very best stuff from the original is good enough that it still hits here. The first flight after Hiccup fixes Toothless’s broken wing is still an exciting and moving moment of a boy and his pet learning to trust one another, zipping through the air as the music soars, and the big action finale has some heft. It’s just that, despite the mostly different faces and voices of the characters (outside of Thames, Butler, Nico Parker as young uber-Viking Astrid, and Nick Frost as blacksmith Gobber, the humans here barely register), we’ve seen all this done before, with more zip and flare.
For kids too young to have any attachment to the originals, HTTYD 2025 is a decent introduction to this world, and it’ll create a whole new generation of Toothless fans (his design here is identical to his ultra-lovable animated version, and generally more cartoony than anything else in the remake). If you’ve already seen this story play out, though, there’s absolutely no reason to choose this new version over a simple rewatch of its completely superior ancestor.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 