What is the point of these “live action” remakes? Why not leave the animated original in peace? The cynic might respond with a Gif of Scrooge McDuck diving enthusiastically into an enormous pile of gold coins.
Crowds have, this summer, already flocked to one retake on a hit Dean DeBlois feature: Lilo & Stitch is, right now, the third-highest-grossing film of 2025. Mind you, the original of that Disney film is 23 years old. DeBlois’s excellent How to Train Your Dragon emerged in 2010, and the second sequel, also a DeBlois flick, was with us as recently as 2019. Can he justify returning to the origin story so soon?
So many questions. So few ways of saying “this is how the business now functions”. In times past a new version would feel some compunction to remake and remodel. But, as the fury around the recent Snow White confirmed, audiences now seek comforting walkthroughs of material already long-ago absorbed. If you think the Harry Potter TV series will be taking any narrative liberties, I have a used broomstick to sell you.
With all that in mind, it is hardly worth complaining that the current How to Train Your Dragon, though close to half an hour longer than the first film, sticks closely to the story we all know.
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The charming Mason Thames now stars as Hiccup, son of a fierce Viking chief (unusually, Gerard Butler reprises the role he has voiced since 2010), who befriends one of the dragons his friends and family feel threaten their windy community. The usual movie-dad issues play out as we move towards a deeper understanding.
As before, the script, adapted from Cressida Cowell’s hit novel series, imposes a 21st-century order on the supposedly gruff Nordic society. One student trots out endless statistics about the different classes of dragon. Formal competitions decide who will take on which task. Little here moves us too far from the values of contemporary suburbia. Stick to your studies and make your family proud.
There are only a few tweaks to the original scenario. The island, rather than teaming with random Northmen, is now inhabited by a dragon-killing elite that the longboats have gathered from all corners of the planet. This allows for an admirable, and hitherto unattainable, blending of the races (the sort of thing those anti-Snow White paranoiacs would deride as “woke”).
All well and good, but you won’t be surprised to hear the young protagonist still speaks with an American accent. We don’t wish to overly alarm the tweenagers of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
One could bang on all day about how familiar so much of this seems. But it is only fair to acknowledge that, judged as an independent entity (if such an assessment is possible), the current How to Train Your Dragon works as sleek, charming, funny entertainment.
Much of that is down to the cast. Thames, hitherto best known as the star of the horror hit The Black Phone, doesn’t let his fragile ingenuousness get in the way of moral determination. Nico Parker, as his plucky best friend Astrid, is fiery and smart enough for us to confidently conclude that critics will soon not feel the need to point out that she is Thandiwe Newton’s daughter. Nobody is better suited to shouting in a horned hat than Gerard Butler. Nick Frost does Nick Frost.
Praise must also go the way of all the Irish talent that facilitated the shoot in Belfast and on north Co Antrim’s windy coast. As ever, much postproduction fine-tuning has taken place, but the blasted seascape still remains handsomely itself in the role of Scandinavia’s crueller archipelagos. If we must have such retreads then let them at least be carried off with this degree of amusing gusto.
