‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Review

‘How to Train Your Dragon’ is a remake of the 2010 animated film of the same name, with very little changed. If you enjoyed that first film, then you’re in luck, because director Dean DeBloise has made virtually the exact same movie, except with live performers in place of the animated characters. In a vacuum, the movie is fine.

But why does it exist?

Remaking animated films into live action ones is not a new phenomenon; it can be traced back to the 1990s with such Disney films as ‘101 Dalmatians’. These remakes were few and far between until a switch seems to have been flipped for Disney in 2014. Before that time, Disney had produced five total live action remakes of their animated classics. But from 2014 to the present day, there have been 19 such remakes, with several more on the way. This year alone, Disney has produced ‘Snow White’ and ‘Lilo & Stitch’ remakes to varying critical and commercial success.

‘How to Train Your Dragon’ is Dreamworks Animation’s first foray into live action remakes and also happens to be the quickest turnaround for such a regurgitation, coming a mere fifteen years after the original animated hit.

So far as I can tell, there are two reasons to go all in on live action remakes.

First off, the studios and the filmmakers could believe that live action storytelling is fundamentally superior to animation, and replacing animated characters with live performers brings a level of humanity otherwise impossible.

This is a silly mindset to have, ignorant of the artistic brilliance, the strengths and unique perspectives possible only in animation. But as wrong as this view may be, it theoretically still puts storytelling first, pursuing live action remakes in hopes of improving upon an already solid story.

The second, and more likely, reason to pump out live action remakes is that it’s easy money. These films are a shameless cash grab for an increasingly creatively bankrupt Hollywood. Disney’s live action films from 2014 onward, excluding those released directly to Disney+, have earned an exceptional average of $679,269,056 at the global box office, maxing out with 2019’s ‘The Lion King’ bringing in $1,622,020,819 despite mixed critical reception.

Telling new stories that resonate with an audience is hard. Marketing original stories to get people into a theater is hard. Repackaging a beloved classic, however, will appeal to kids, of course, but also to parents nostalgic for their own childhood. These are the types of movies green lit when studios are run by private equity jabronis and shareholders looking to pump and dump existing IP. Pre-streaming studio heads were not operating out of a belief only in artistic purity, of course, but from an understanding that commerce and original storytelling are linked. Telling original stories is risky, but only through original stories, creating new shared cultural memories, will Hollywood and theater-going as an experience survive and flourish as a sustainable, essential art form.

Yes, these movies will make money, but they will also further diminish the audience’s trust in Hollywood’s ability to tell exciting, new stories, thus confirming so many people’s suspicions that going to the theater just isn’t worth it any more. These remakes make short term profits but lack cultural stickiness; we are not creating new cultural landmarks but recycling pre-existing ones with diminishing returns, relying on people going to the theater as a means of distracting their children for a few hours with a known commodity. If studios don’t believe in their original stories, why would the audience?

With ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, the change to live action is even more perplexing than usual, since the dragons still require computer animation. This underlines a strength in animated filmmaking: while the original feels like a seamless, immersive world, the live action remake feels awkward and disconnected at times. Animated people interacting with animated dragons feels natural, while live people interacting with animated dragons feels off putting.

‘How to Train Your Dragon’ is a totally fine movie. Just as in the original, this is a sweet story about a young boy’s efforts to distinguish himself, make his father proud, and prevent needless war between vikings and dragons. The cast dutifully recreates the characters from the original animation, with Gerard Butler standing out with strength and compassion as he reprises his role as Stoick the Vast.

If you liked the original animated film, you will almost certainly like this one, because they didn’t change a thing.

And for that reason, I hate it.

How to Train Your Dragon
Rated PG for sequences of intension action, and peril.
Running Time: 2 hours and 5 minutes

Director Dean DeBloise
Writers Dean DeBloise
Stars Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gabriel Howell, Julian Dennison, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Frost, Gerard Butler
Rating PG
Running Time 125 Minutes
Genres Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy