How to Train Your Dragon soars (again)

Live-action remakes of beloved animated films are a crapshoot that usually ends badly, but what happens when you 1) remake a movie that is already legitimately great, and 2) allow the original filmmaker to revisit their own work? It sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Why remake something that is already damn near perfect, and what if the original filmmaker just stews in their own juice and ends up reheating something they already perfected? Conversely, what if that filmmaker uses the opportunity to improve what seemed perfect? 

This is the case with How to Train Your Dragon, a live-action remake of the beloved 2010 animated film of the same name. Now working as a solo writer/director, the original co-writer and co-director, Dean DeBlois, returns to write and direct the remake (adapted from Cressida Cowell’s book), and instead of overheating what he’d already made, DeBlois approaches Dragon with intention and care, and actually manages to create something great that stands on its own.

The live action How to Train Your Dragon is good because How to Train Your Dragon is good. There’s not a ton of room for improvement, but DeBlois does manage to find places to add thrilling and thoughtful new touches. There are some expanded action sequences that make the dragons that plague the Isle of Berk even more frightening—a credible threat you must defend against!—and some flight sequences that enhance the exhilarating fantasy of soaring through the sky with your dragon bestie. But there are also expanded character beats, filling in supporting characters like Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his role from the animated films), the Viking chieftain in charge of protecting his village from dragons, and Astrid (Nico Parker), a teenaged girl whose relationship with the protagonist is richer because she is a stronger character here.

The protagonist remains Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, an awkward would-be Viking who seems destined to disappoint his father, Stoick. The chief strength of the live-action remake is Mason Thames, who wholly makes Hiccup his own. He never feels like he’s chasing Jay Baruchel’s vocal performance or trying to mimic anything of Baruchel’s version of the character. Thames is flat out terrific, not only winning as a nerdy kid struggling to impress his jock dad, but also in convincing the audience that Toothless the dragon is real. The relationship between Hiccup and Toothless is the heart of the film, and convincing computer effects and top-notch illustration make Toothless a CG wonder, but it’s Thames’s performance that really sells the relationship and makes us root for Hiccup and Toothless to triumph. 

Dragon also benefits from giving characters more room to breathe. The film’s runtime is upped from 100 minutes to 125 minutes, but the additions are not gratuitous, and the film is well paced and flies by. Yes, there are many sequences that are shot-for-shot remakes of the animated film, and that does beg the question of what we’re doing here beyond IP maintenance—Universal Studios just opened a new “Isle of Berk” theme park in Orlando earlier this year—but Dean DeBlois expands on characters and deepens relationships enough that the remake breathes with new life and energy. And rendered with photo-real effects, the dragon flight sequences are breathtaking, especially when underscored by John Powell’s epic theme.

The existence of live-action remakes of animated classics is annoying in and of itself, but How to Train Your Dragon shows it can be done with intention to create something that exists beyond the inherent IP maintenance of it all. By focusing on characters and using the new format to enhance thrilling storytelling, Dragon separates itself from the pack of coldly calculated remakes. It feels less mercenary than most remakes, in no small part due to Mason Thames’s genuinely great performance, and maybe also in part to Dean DeBlois approaching his previous work with a combination of humility and enthusiasm. 

It might be a lateral move at most—How to Train Your Dragon is already excellent—but the live-action version at least justifies its existence with the beauty and thrill of the flight sequences and more fleshed out characters. If we’re going to insist on remaking animated films in live action, the remakes should at least find something new to offer, and thanks to improved special effects and Mason Thames, How to Train Your Dragon offers heartfelt emotion and tangible thrills. The dragon flights really are something else.

How to Train Your Dragon is now playing exclusively in theaters.