MOVIE REVIEW: How to Train Your Dragon ~ FILMYWAPAS

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON— 4 STARS

There’s a cute line near the beginning of Dean DeBlois’s How to Train Your Dragon remake when the assembled teenagers of the Viking village of Berk are nervously sizing up their chances for the right-of-passage “Trial of Flame” training course. The all-star of the bunch is Nico Parker’s unafraid Astrid (in a star-making turn), who looks at the upcoming experience and says, “It’s only fun if you get a scar out of it.” Unexpectedly, this mindset of rugged glee typifies what makes this live-action version worthwhile, rather than merely a lazy studio facsimile.

LESSON #1: GET OUT THERE AND GET DIRTY—Much of what transpires in the 2025 How to Train Your Dragon differs little from the cherished 2010 animated original. But what stands out is a different blend of dirty brawn, achieved with a large helping of visual effects and Tom Wilton’s puppetry, as actual actors navigate the stunt-filled peril. The cast goes out there and gets dirty, rolling through Roy Taylor’s stunt sequences. They put the wind in their face and hair and brave the elements. While watching the animated one remains a lush visual experience that achieves the storytelling feels, the new one displays a hearty endurance that is mightily appreciated.

Newcomer Mason Thames of The Black Phone is Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. He is the squeamish and STEM-smart son of the Viking chieftain Stoick the Vast, played by original voice actor Gerard Butler, who’s aged perfectly into this returning opportunity. Their cliffside village of Berk is regularly tormented by several varieties of airborne dragons that destroy their home and poach their livestock. The most feared of those is the Night Fury, a quick black dart of a wraith that no one has ever seen, let alone killed.

While Stoick insists on fighting the fire-breathing scourges with iron and fists, Hiccup, the blacksmith apprentice to Stoick’s longtime friend Gobber the Belch (Shaun of the Dead favorite Nick Frost), uses his head to invent possible new contraptions to target the dragons. His approach is scoffed at by his peers and seen as a physical weakness by his increasingly disappointed father. Utilizing his skill with a dash of pure dumb luck, Hiccup’s new ballista bolo device actually takes down a Night Fury, but no one sees it or believes the kid’s story.

When Hiccup heads out into the island countryside to investigate, he finds the trapped and wounded Night Fury. With the chance to kill the emerald-eyed cutie and make himself a village hero, Hiccup realizes he’s just as scared as the dragon and puts his knife away. Instead, he nurses the dragon back to health and uses his craftsmanship skills to build a prosthetic replacement tail wing and riding saddle. Hiccup endears himself to the dragon he’s named Toothless and learns about how they tick. He uses the gathered information to his advantage back in Gobber’s Trial of Fire training program and hopes his demonstrated new knowledge can sway his countrymen to call off their feeble feud against the dragons.

LESSON #2: THE IMPORTANCE OF MERCY— This change of thinking that transforms foe to friend comes from an important act of mercy. Hiccup shows empathy as a warrior to seek reverential peace instead of violence, which flies against his upbringing and the entire town’s attitude. Slowly but surely, starting with Astrid and his fellow teen trainees, Hiccup’s mercy and wisdom spread, leading to the culminating transformation of everyone. The biggest shift of mercy is whether or not Stoick can find mercy as a father to the son he doesn’t understand or favor.

LESSON #3: THE TWO-WAY DESIRE OF PRIDE BETWEEN FATHERS AND SONS—Matching the original, much of the emotional journey of How to Train Your Dragon rests on the father-and-son dynamic between Hiccup and Stoick. The father longs for his son to become a legendary warrior like him and a fitting heir who can lead and protect the Berk clan someday. Contrarily, the son wants to be heard, seen, and valued for who he is—quirks and all—and not try to be something he’s not. Closing the canyon of their clash towards acceptance and respect looms large and feels tangible when played out in person by Thames and Butler.

The prominent reason to see the newfangled How to Train Your Dragon is for the attempt at creating a distinctive and authentic visual palette. The Jungle Book and Shang Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings cinematographer Bill Pope soaks in every green and rocky cliff of the idyllic Iceland and Northern Ireland shooting locations and knotty wood of the vast sets created by production designer Dominic Watkins (Slumberland) and the art direction team. The hefty and furry wardrobe choices of costume designer Lindsay Pugh (The Marvels) couple with the army of artists doing the hair, makeup, leather, armor, weapon, and prop making work to make everyone look tangible and alive. No expense was spared, and it shows brilliantly on large-format and 3D cinema screens.

LESSON #4: HOW COMFORTABLE AND ACCEPTABLE IS FAMILIARITY?--- Enjoyment for How to Train Your Dragon will come down to a viewer’s acceptance and comfort with familiarity. In one regard, there’s nothing wrong with the 2010 animated original. At the same time, this one, made by the original director, Lilo & Stitch’s Dean DeBlois, graduating to live-action and bringing back composer John Powell to enhance his original Oscar-nominated score with a new arrangement of bodhrans, bagpipes, and choral voices, stands on its own merits even if it barely veers from the first go-around. If folks wanted something different, DeBlois could have scripted something closer to the very different 2003 Cressida Crowell source novel.

His adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon, now done twice in different forms, works just fine. Maybe the animated one was training wheels for the day this human-rich one could be made with advanced technology. The inevitable comparisons will be divisive for some and a coin toss of preference for others. Either way, both movies are solid enough to stoke that fiery and spirit-stirring excitement for audiences new or old. Let’s show our own mercy and have both.