How to Train Your Dragon

I’m finding it really hard to rate this movie, because I’m drawn between rating the actual quality of the film that I just witnessed, and rating it based on the fact that it is a pointless, near perfect, recreation of an already very well-made animated movie. I’m settling somewhere in the middle.

As far as this movie goes, it is as you would expect, filled with the same heart and comforting storytelling that made the original so special. I think the story is wonderful but doesn’t really offer any depth or any alternative perspective than the original had. The big scenes and story beats hit but I wonder how much of that actually comes down to this film. Is it more so just seeing this world and hearing the music that’s making these scenes work.

This movie is proof again that animation is just a medium and not a genre because, while the movie looks impressive, I also think it falters to capture the magic of Burk that’s seen in the animated movie. I thought the sets, the production design, the costumes all felt a bit costumey like they were trying to re-create something that had already been made, instead of it actually feeling lived in and real.

The gorgeous onset locations and the vistas look wonderful however sometimes this did draw me out, because seeing the costumes amongst the real world, there was a dissonance there that didn’t quite work.

The performances are great across the board. I don’t think anybody is a stand out and yet nobody is jarring as well so I guess that’s good. I do think Hiccup’s performance in the animated movie is so iconic and so embedded in that character that whoever was going to play him was gonna have a hard time living up to that. And while I think Mason is a good hiccup, I can’t help it, compared to the animated, I think he’s missing that awkwardness and goofiness that that Hiccup has in moments. Some performances felt a little stilted as if they were having to perform lines that already been performed as well.

And that just brings me to a larger point, I don’t know why this was made. It’s doing nothing different than the original and I think I’m comfortable in saying after this and the other live action remakes we’ve had this year I’m just totally against them. If it’s doing something different, it sometimes misses out what makes the original so special. If it’s shot for a shot, then what is the point in remaking it because we already have a movie which is good enough? Perhaps the only circumstance where it makes sense is when it’s modernising a really old story but even then we’ve had instances of that and it doesn’t work. So if this is the best that we get, which is just a recreation of an already good movie, then what’s the point because I would rather watch the animated movie.