How to Train Your Dragon: Still a thoughtful fantasy

How to Train Your Dragon (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, perhaps generously, despite intense fantasy action and peril

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.15.25

I deemed this film’s 2010 animated predecessor perfect, which is a term I rarely use.

 

Writer/director Dean DeBlois’ (mostly) live-action remake therefore had mighty large shoes to fill.

 

After spending several days trying to earn this massive dragon's trust, Hiccup
(Mason Thames) achieves an important breakthrough.

On the encouraging side, DeBlois also co-wrote and co-directed the 2010 original — and its two sequels — all loosely based on British author Cressida Cowell’s children’s book series; he therefore knows the material quite well. DeBlois also cleverly reused one of the original voice actors in his same role here, which is a nice touch of continuity ... as also is retaining John Powell as score composer.

While the result here isn’t up to the original’s quality, it gets reasonably close, and avid fans of the 2010 film will recognize key moments and bits of dialogue.

 

Perhaps too many of them, actually; at times this feels like a scene-for-scene copy.

 

The setting is a long time ago, in an isolated Viking community far, far away. The island of Berk consists of dwellings nestled amid rocky outcroppings, whose inhabitants have long dealt with a unique pest problem: an assortment of imaginatively named, bad-tempered, fire-breathing dragons that frequently raid the community to torch homes while snatching sheep ... and the occasional luckless human.

 

The beasts have been catalogued in a massive book that describes size, speed, levels of danger, weaknesses (if any) and other details. As was the case in the animated film — and Cowell’s book — the story’s whimsy comes from the syntax-mangling names given the creatures: Gronckle, Deadly Nadder, Scauldron, Hideous Zippleback and many more.

 

Along with the legendary Night Fury, which nobody ever has seen.

 

Under the guidance of tribal leader Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler) and inventive blacksmith/weapons designer Gobber (Nick Frost), the villagers have managed to hold their own. Sort of. Stoick occasionally leads ocean-going sorties in an effort to locate and destroy the dragons’ nest, but they’ve never been able to find it; each attempt merely produces more casualties.

 

Stoick’s overly impetuous son, Hiccup (Mason Thames), can’t wait to follow in his father’s footsteps, by joining one such mission. Unfortunately, Hiccup is uncoordinated, timid and completely useless during dragon raids; he therefore has been apprenticed to Gobber, who fails to credit the boy’s clever dragon-battling gadgets.

 

Hiccup also is regarded with contempt by his peers: Snotlout (Gabriel Howell), Fishlegs (Julian Dennison), twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut (Bronwyn James and Harry Trevaldwyn), and — worst of all — hard-charging Viking goddess Astrid (Nico Parker). Hiccup has long crushed on her; she never gives him a second glance, except perhaps to sneer.

 

But Hiccup remains undeterred, and he rarely obeys his father’s orders to stay safely away from the action. Thus, during one attack, he hauls out his cannon-fired bolo net-thingie, and shoots at an all-but-invisible something whose movements can be tracked solely by the way it blots out the nighttime stars.

 

And hits it.

 

Subsequent searches through the nearby woods finally verify this assumption, when Hiccup comes across an ebon-dark dragon helplessly bound in his bolo netting: the Night Fury. Given this easy chance to kill the trapped beast, Hiccup raises his knife ...

 

... glances into the creature’s expressive green eyes ...

 

... and can’t do it. 

 

Hiccup senses intelligence and nobility: a creature who deserves to live. So he frees it.

 

The dragon, in turn, obligingly doesn’t eat him. Hiccup dubs it Toothless, due to its retractable choppers.

 

Alas, its effort to fly away traps it in a deep rocky bowl; Hiccup realizes that his gadget sheared off a stabilizing portion of the dragon’s tail. This is the sort of challenge that the inventive lad can remedy, but will the beast accept such help?

 

Back in the village, Stoick finally relents, and allows his son to begin dragon-slaying training for the Trial of Flames ... much to the annoyance of his aforementioned classmates, and particularly Astrid. Worse yet, Hiccup no longer wants to kill the beasts, but nonetheless must keep up half-hearted appearances, under the exasperated eye of Gobber, the class trainer.

 

What follows is a clever parable on the wisdom of questioning long-held assumptions, and the willingness to believe in the possibility of interspecies cooperation.

 

Both of which, lamentably, put Hiccup at odds with his father.

 

The young man is an excellent underdog hero: gangly, clumsy and a square peg in a round hole, but nonetheless passionate, open-minded and willing to take crazy chances. Thames excels at sincerity, and his bashful efforts with Astrid are endearing. Parker, in turn, has the more difficult challenge of believably transforming Astrid’s initial disdain into curiosity and — eventually — something stronger.

 

Parker also makes the young woman an impressively agile and ferocious fighter.

 

Dennison’s socially awkward Fishlegs is a hoot, and his overly enthusiastic, near-encyclopedic knowledge of dragon species always prompts rolled eyes from his friends.  Howell’s Snotlout is self-absorbed and brash to a degree that fails to conceal galloping insecurities; the poor kid constantly vies for the attention of his father, who scarcely acknowledges his presence.

 

Ruffnut and Tuffnut, collectively, are unrestrained and disruptive. James’ Ruffnut believes that acting tough is more important than being tough; she’ll grab the biggest weapon or the best shield, without the faintest idea how to use either. Trevaldwyn’s Tuffnut is all ego and no delivery; smirky and snide, he believes himself the best dragon slayer ever ... even though he has failed the Trial of Flames multiple times.

 

Butler is his ruggedly macho best as Stoick: every inch the look, sound and movement of a veteran Viking warrior. Frost’s Gobber is a hoot, particularly during the training sessions; the film’s best running gag involves the numerous tool and weapon extensions that replace his missing right arm.

 

The dragons, in turn, are spectacular. Although some show signs of personality — notably the comically corpulent Gronckle — the most care went into Toothless. He’s brought to life via an amazing blend of animation and puppetry, and eventually reveals the mannerisms of an affectionate and loyal dog. The eye-blinks, tilt of head, and even wing and tail placement convey all manner of emotions.

 

Unfortunately, this film suffers from the same affliction that mars most animation-to-live-action transitions: bloat. The original ran 98 minutes; this one is almost half an hour longer, most of which is chewed up by the needlessly protracted flying sequences. 

 

That additional time would have been better spent on deeper character development of the young, would-be dragon slayers, particularly Ruffnut and Tuffnut. On top of which, a key climactic event — which takes place off-camera — occurs much too quickly to be believed.

Such quibbles aside, DeBlois’ film delivers solid entertainment; I’ve no doubt it’ll be very popular with both longtime fans and series newcomers.