How to Train Your Dragon: We can get one good live-action adaptation. As a treat

There are legitimate reasons to remake a movie.

There are the remakes of old, unnoticed hidden gems — like 1999's Scarface or 2021's West Side Story — reinterpreted for modern audiences. There are the re-imaginings of non-English-language fare that, as in Martin Scorsese's The Departed, still find something new to say. And then, there are remakes like O Brother Where Art Thou: wild retellings so cavalier and intentionally uninformed, they can hardly be counted as remakes at all.  

The results, whether good or bad, typically wear that originality on their sleeves. 

But this week's big new release — How to Train Your Dragon — initially seems more like typical nostalgia bait than something remade for any legitimate reason.

At least, that is, before you watch it.

Granted, the Dreamworks revisit of the 2010 animated classic hews particularly close to the original: It still follows a Viking teen, Hiccup, uncovering the secretly kind heart of the mythical beasts his brethren have been slaughtering for centuries. It even features some of the same cast (Gerard Butler returns as Hiccup's father, Stoick) and crew (composer John Powell and Canadian writer-director Dean DeBlois).

But, one would wonder, doesn't it still have the same cold beating heart of all remakes of its type? And wouldn't it be doomed to the same fate? Soulless and average at best — plainly boring at worst — many remakes simultaneously insult the medium of animation, while also exposing the often horrifying realities of rendering cartoonish gags photo-realistically.

Any yet, this time, one is left wondering something else: How did the new How to Train Your Dragon end up sort of … actually good?

This is an uncomfortable admission for someone who can't stop complaining about the destructive neo-tradition of remaking cartoons as live action. But the first reason this movie works may be that its director felt the same: In an interview with CBC News, DeBlois was quick to point out his own antipathy toward live-action remakes of animated movies — how "they often miss the soul."

To avoid that, his strategy was to deliver what's nearly a shot-for-shot remake. We are treated to a revisit so slavishly faithful that moments as small as Stoick brushing a burning ember from his cloak are recreated. 

Hiccup, this time played by The Black Phone's Mason Thames, channels Jay Baruchel's Chandler-esque patter to an almost uncanny degree, while cannily seeding in virtually all the same jokes. And even Toothless — the catlike "Night Fury" dragon that Hiccup befriends and eventually chaotically defends against ignorant humans, Free Willy-style — looks virtually ported over from the 2010 version. 

And aside from mildly reduced expressive capabilities, that makes sense. The original's already digitally rendered, video-game-like dragons are more or less indistinguishable when CGI-ed into our live-action Viking paradise, while DeBlois years ago told the New York Times he aimed to ape real-world cinematography with these films.

That vision lends itself to the limited benefits 2025's version have over 2010's: The action-first set pieces hit harder when they're flying through the hauntingly beautiful rock spires of the Faroe Islands. And both chases and fiery fights pack an extra oomph when given the thumpy realism of, well, reality. 

It all culminates in a final boss battle that effectively makes a case for the rest of the movie. Those with megalophobia, look out: Our mommy dragon here looks and feels miles more gargantuan than the original's comparatively puny queen.