By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
Why train a dragon that has already been trained, and recently at that? What’s the point? “How to Train Your Dragon” is the live-action remake of that 2010 Oscar nominated animated classic. The story doesn’t change one bit, making it a regurgitation of the original with the only difference being that there are real actors in this one. If Disney has no shame with obvious cash grabs, then why should Universal?
The isle of Berk is a unique place with a community of Vikings as the residents who are in a perpetual war against dragons. Hiccup (Mason Thames) is a young, scrawny teen desperately trying to fit in with the rough Viking culture, especially since his father Stoick (Gerard Butler) is the chief of their village. One particular night as the dragons arrive to raid and pillage, the crafty Hiccup puts his latest invention to the test and manages to knock a Night Fury out of the sky.
Excited that his first dragon kill may be the dreaded Night Fury, Hiccup hastens through the wilderness to find and finish off the injured dragon. However, he can’t bring himself to do it, and instead nurses it back to health, befriending the dragon he then names Toothless. As the two learn from each other and build an unbreakable bond, there is a looming ancient threat that could spell doom for the Vikings and dragons alike.
Dean DeBlois, who co-wrote and directed all the previous animated “How to Train Your Dragon” movies, appropriately returns to helm this live-action production. So, upholding the integrity and cohesiveness of this tale is not an issue for the Canadian filmmaker. In fact, he keeps to the original story so completely that there is very little difference between the two films. Don’t fix what isn’t broken seems to be DeBlois’ motto, and he is correct to a certain extent, but the whole point to remaking his own film is to explore different opportunities he didn’t get to take with the animated version. While this may appease fans of the original, he creates no justifiable reason for audiences to spend the time and money to see this version in the theaters, when the animated version is only 15 years old and is far superior in every way. Be that as it may, even though the story is the same including a lot of the dialogue, it’s a good story.
Sure, the CGI effects of the dragons and their abilities are well-done for the most part, but the set pieces themselves look cheap. The weaponry looks like community theater stage props and the costumes are sad, ill-fitting duplicates of the original. DeBlois tries so hard to make everyone look like their animated counterparts that he seems to forget that he’s making a live-action, in which the whole point is to make it less cartoonish, not more. As for the pacing of this remake, it is significantly slower, because of how entirely predictable it is.
Another shortcoming of creating a live-action remake of an animation is having real people play out the roles. In the original, animators are able to make the character reactions and motions perfect, but having real actors portray these parts naturally promote flaws in comparison. It almost seems like the director coached the cast to act like their animated versions, and the results are silly, ineffective performances. Gerard Butler is the only cast member to reprise his same role from that 2010 animation, and yet he seems to have no clue how to play the part with his over-the-top emotional outbursts and contradictory behavior. Mason Thames makes a good Hiccup, visually and acting-wise, consistently hitting his marks and maintaining character appeal, but it was Jay Baruchel’s voice-acting in the original film that made the Hiccup character extremely lovable.
Remaking a great movie that’s only 15 years old and remaking it exactly the same is the definition of tedium. “How to Train Your Dragon” will undoubtedly appeal to children and fans of the original who are curious how it will look in a live-action format, but save your money and have a family movie night by streaming the original from home. The remake simply cannot capture that same emotional attachment the first one did so well.
This movie earns:
