How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
Directed by: Dean DeBlois
Premise: A live action remake of the 2010 animated film. In a mythical Viking village, the youth train to become the next generation of dragon slayers. A young blacksmith (Mason Thames) tames a dragon and learns that everything the villagers believe about the beasts is wrong.
What Works: The 2025 version of How to Train Your Dragon replicates a lot of the appeals of the original film. This is partly a father-son story and partly a boy-and-his-pet story. As a father-son story, How to Train Your Dragon successfully plays on the pressure felt by young people to live up to their parent’s expectations. The scenes between Hiccup and his father effectively dramatize the way parents and children talk past one another. The relationship between Hiccup and Toothless also hits the right emotional buttons. The titular dragon is designed to look like a cat and this film plays on the affection that many people have for animals. Nico Parker is cast as Astrid, the female warrior in training with Hiccup, and Parker plays the role well. The quality of the production is impressive. The costumes and sets are convincing and look like a fully formed world. The dragons are also well rendered. Their texture is vivid and their behavior includes visual ticks that make them credible. The flying scenes are beautifully done and in a few moments achieve a quality of wonder.
What Doesn’t: The 2025 version of How to Train Your Dragon follows the Disney remake model in which the live action version is a translation of the animated original. A few minor alterations aside, the 2025 version of How to Train Your Dragon is virtually identical to the 2010 film. It has the same director, the same music composer using the same themes, and Gerard Butler returns to play Hiccup’s father. The design of the film is the same including the costumes, the dragons, and the sets. Even some of the shots are replicated. So much is the same that it renders the film redundant. Not much, if anything, is done better here. One of the key weaknesses of this version, at least comparatively, is the characterization of Hiccup. Actor Mason Thames is a competent actor but he’s not as engaging or as interesting as his animated counterpart. That’s true of the movie in general. The translation from animation to live action loses some of the charm of the original How to Train Your Dragon. This fantastical story worked better in animation.
Bottom Line: Taken unto itself, 2025’s How to Train Your Dragon impresses in its design and execution. It is thoroughly entertaining and tells this story well. But the fact is that this version is copied, almost scene for scene, from the 2010 film and does not do it better. There’s no good reason for this remake to exist.
Episode: #1053 (June 22, 2025)