How To Train Your Dragon (PG)
Cast: Nico Parker, Julian Dennison, Mason Thames, Gerard ButlerGenre: Comedy
Author(s): Dean DeBlois
Director: Dean DeBlois
Release Date: 10/06/2025
Running Time: 125mins
Country: US
Year: 2025
A weedy, young Viking called Hiccup has been instructed his whole life that dragons are evil beasts. Consequently, youngsters in the village all grow up with a hatred of the creatures. By chance, Hiccup befriends an injured Night Fury dragon and nurses the creature back to health. As the bond between animal and boy deepens, Hiccup questions everything he has ever been told.
LondonNet Film Review
How To Train Your Dragon (PG) Film Review from LondonNet
Returning to the scene of the crime seldom works well for filmmakers. Michael Haneke’s remake of sadistic home invasion thriller Funny Games felt redundant 10 years after the original and English language versions of Spoorloos as The Vanishing and Jo-On: The Grudge as The Grudge lost chills and thrills in translation. Dean DeBlois, Oscar-nominated co-director and co-writer of the 2010 animated fantasy How To Train Your Dragon, flies solo behind the camera for a live-action reworking that captures all the charm of the original but ultimately begs the question: why remake a film that was almost perfect and confidently passes the test of time?…
Two scenes from the original have been excised: Hiccup sneaking Toothless into the blacksmith’s stall at night to alter his saddle design, and a plot-relevant encounter with Terrible Terrors on the beach that reveals dragons aren’t fireproof on the inside (vital for the grand finale). Otherwise, this rollicking adventure is largely a shot-for-shot remake of the 2010 picture, expanded with 25 minutes of special effects-laden bombast and character development focused on Astrid, the other dragon-fighting recruits and female denizens of Berk including village elder Gothi.
Returning composer John Powell expands and enriches his orchestrations including the drum-thumping majesty of Test Drive, which underscores Hiccup’s first flight with Toothless. Every emotional beat from 2010 still hits in 2025 but any lumps in the throat feel smaller and the first incarnation of Toothless had a twinkle in his emerald eyes that burns less bright, somehow, with the benefit of state-of-the-art digital trickery.
Viking chieftain Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his role) presides over the village of Berk, where residents battle pernicious dragons that snatch livestock and set houses ablaze. Stoick’s weakling son Hiccup (Mason Thames) is relegated to sharpening swords under the aegis of blacksmith Gobber the Belch (Nick Frost), who lost his left hand and right leg fighting one of the beasts. During a night-time skirmish, Hiccup shoots down a Night Fury using his homemade catapult device.
The boy discovers the crash-landed beast tangled in his bola. Ignoring his training, Hiccup releases the stricken creature and christens the inquisitive dragon Toothless. Using his engineering skills, Hiccup fashions a mechanical tail fin so Toothless can fly again. Friendship blossoms between boy and beast as Hiccup completes his dragon training alongside Astrid (Nico Parker), twins Ruffnut (Bronwyn James) and Tuffnut (Harry Trevaldwyn), Fishlegs (Julian Dennison) and Snotlout (Gabriel Howell), who yearns to win the approval of his father (Peter Serafinowicz).
How To Train Your Dragon soars on nostalgia, anchored by a winning performance from Thames as the first Viking in generations who affirms he would not kill his tribe’s sworn enemy. He catalyses appealing screen chemistry with Parker’s feisty and full-blooded rival turn conspirator in aerial heroism. Dialogue is occasionally recycled word-for-word, like when Stoick discovers his only child has befriended a dragon and rages: “You’ve thrown your lot in with them… You’re not my son!” DeBlois’s visually stunning return to Berk delivers everything you expect, but little more.
– Jo Planter
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