The Movie: How to Train Your Dragon
The Director: Dean DeBlois
The Cast: Mason Thames, Gerard Butler, Nico Parker, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Ruth Codd, Peter Serafinowicz, Murray McArthur
The Story: As an ancient threat endangers both Vikings and dragons alike on the isle of Berk, the friendship between Hiccup, an inventive Viking, and Toothless, a Night Fury dragon, becomes the key to both species forging a new future together.
The Rating: 7 / 10
The Review:
I feel like we've long since reached a point where any live action remake of an animated film is going to be greeted with skepticism and doubt which is a very tough thing to get past, especially in the age of the internet and social media. Dean DeBlois directed all three of the animated films in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, which I feel is one of the most consistently entertaining trilogies that I have ever seen, and he is back in the chair this time around as well.
The thing I was most curious about going in was whether or not liberties would be taken and story beats changed to accommodate the live action format which I would have been fine with either way. What we get is about as close to a shot for shot translation as could be possible and just about all of it was pulled off really nicely. One of the biggest challenges, in my opinion, would be getting Hiccup right since his character is so iconic, especially with the distinctive voice of Jay Baruchel, and I don't know if a better actor could have been cast than Mason Thames.
Overall, the casting was pretty spot on with Thames being paired up with Nico Parker who is on board as Astrid and can you imagine anyone else playing Stoick than Gerard Butler? Parker brought all of the energy and charisma needed to tackle such a pivotal character and the chemistry between the two leads feels very natural so job well done there. Everyone else in the movie is pretty faithful to their animated counterparts which just adds to the meticulous transition to live action with Nick Frost as Gobber being another standout.
Visually, this movie is just as stunning as the original with all the iconic moments firmly in place from the Hiccup and Toothless test flight sequence all the way to the big finale, every moment is as epic as I was hoping it would be. I think it would be easy to be critical of just how closely everything resembles the animation but for me, if it works it works. I mean, what else are they going to do unless they go a totally different direction which I don't think would have worked as well. A large scale, mass appeal coming of age story featuring dragons needs the exact tone and style that DeBlois sticks to and I wouldn't want to see this story portrayed any other way.
The whole movie is just fun and, while it breezes along at a very brisk pace, I wouldn't have wanted it expanded anywhere past the two hours and five minutes run time. Again, don't mess with what works. I also really love that composer John Powell's soundtrack, including the iconic and sweeping fanfare, is firmly in place and it gave me all the same emotions while experiencing it in an IMAX theater. Yes, I would say this movie is worth upgrading to a premium formar theater.
Is this movie necessary? That's debatable and definitely makes for good discussion. Is this movie worth seeing? Yes, there is no debate, this is an entertaining movie and could be a great way to introduce little ones to both the theatrical experience and to one of the best franchise trilogies of the last decade, animated or not. Just go see this movie, it's a lot of fun.
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