By Blake Moren, CTCN Correspondent
“How To Train Your Dragon” is directed by Dean DeBlois, who has directed all the “Dragon” films. It is a live-action remake of the original animated film of the same name.
It stars Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gabriel Howell, Julian Dennison, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Frost, and Gerard Butler reprising his role as Stoick.
I had a heavy amount of skepticism for this film, fearing it would just be a complete retread of the original, but I’m glad to say that my fears were unwarranted. Well, for the most part anyway.
This film actually manages to improve on what I considered the near-perfect original.
It is the exact same story, but with quite a few improvements. I felt that the characters had slightly better characterizations and motivations.
John Powell’s musical score was excellent, as always. It is very similar to the original, but with new welcome additions. He actually managed to improve on his original score, which was already near-perfect.
This film is beautifully shot, well-acted (mostly) and manages to enhance the original story in a few ways. The dragons’ realistic re-designs were also a concern, but they actually look amazing. Especially Toothless.
While I may have some nitpicks, the major issue I had with the film was Mason Thames.
His performance as Hiccup was overall decent, but bizarrely inconsistent. The way he delivered his lines ranged from pretty good to very awkward and stilted. I don’t know if this was intentional or not.
This is among the best live-action remakes in a sea of countless terrible live-action remakes. It actually manages to be almost as good as the original but does fall short in some ways.
Overall, I highly recommend it. 8.1 / 10