Blame Disney. The massive success of that company's ongoing project to remake its classic animated movies in live action has obviously inspired rival animation studio DreamWorks to follow suit, starting with a live-action remake of 2010 hit How to Train Your Dragon. Artistic considerations were left behind long ago, and it's tough to see this new version of a film that isn't even 20 years old as anything other than calculated and cynical. With the original film's co-writer and co-director, Dean DeBlois, on board to write and direct, it's clear that DreamWorks is merely looking for a copy-and-paste job that can bring in fans who are comforted by a slight variation on the familiar.
In that sense, How to Train Your Dragon is a success. DeBlois' slavishly faithful recreation of his own movie takes no chances and offers nothing that might challenge or upset the franchise's devoted following. In many instances, it's an exact shot-for-shot replica of the original, making an effective case for its own pointlessness. There isn't a single thing that DeBlois does better here than he did the first time, and even when he comes close to matching what came before, the strain shows through. It's like a washed-up rock star fronting a tribute band of his own material.
Not that the original How to Train Your Dragon is a masterpiece. It's a mildly engaging story with some striking animation and amusing voice performances. The expressive, cartoony animation has been replaced with stone-faced actors and grittier CG effects, making both the human characters and the dragons less lively. The vibrant colors have been toned down, and even many of the jokes that get repeated verbatim land with a thud.
It makes sense that the adult comedic actors who voiced the teenage animated characters couldn't reprise their roles, but their successors are mostly disappointing. Mason Thames replaces Jay Baruchel's goofiness with a bland earnestness as Hiccup, the scrawny son of Viking chieftain Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, the only actor returning). Everyone in Hiccup's remote village is devoted to fighting the fearsome dragons that mount frequent attacks to steal livestock and burn down buildings, but Hiccup is too timid and clumsy to join them.
He's an ingenious craftsman, though, and one of his contraptions ensnares a supposedly deadly dragon known as a Night Fury. Instead of killing the dragon, Hiccup befriends it, naming it Toothless and discovering that dragons aren't such lethal threats after all. They're simply misunderstood, and they're just as terrified of humans as humans are of them. Hiccup has to find a way to convince his fellow Vikings to change their view of dragons, which may be the key to salvation for both species.
Even viewers who've never seen the original movie (adapted loosely from a book series by Cressida Cowell) can see where the story is going, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Both versions of Hiccup are easy to root for, although Thames is a bit more petulant, and the cat-like Toothless is endearing in both incarnations. DeBlois makes only slight adjustments to Toothless' look. While most of the other dragons now appear much more ferocious, Toothless is still cute and cuddly.
The problem is that making the dragons look more "realistic" takes away much of the lighthearted tone. This shouldn't be a fantasy epic like Game of Thrones or The Lord of the Rings — it's a silly, heartwarming cartoon, and DeBlois seems to have lost sight of that. The minor additions include expanded character development for Hiccup's fellow dragon-fighting trainee and potential love interest Astrid (Nico Parker), but they just serve to make her more judgmental and rude.
DeBlois dutifully presents the same story in a slightly new package, and that's probably all he was expected to do. This How to Train Your Dragon is watchable enough, but all it does is take a pleasant viewing experience and make it moderately worse. ♦
How to Train Your Dragon
Rated PG
Directed by Dean DeBlois Starring Mason Thames, Gerard Butler, Nico Parker
