- Starring
- Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James
- Director
- Dean DeBlois
- Rating
- PG
- Genre
- Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy
- Release date
- June 13, 2025
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
On the Viking island of Berk, scrawny Hiccup, a brainy misfit, befriends Toothless, a wounded Night Fury dragon. Defying his tribe’s dragon-killing ways, Hiccup learns that dragons aren’t the enemy. The duo battles to stop a growing danger, pushing for peace between Vikings and dragons.
How to Train Your Dragon (live action) REVIEW
If the last decade has proven anything, it’s that the live-action remake is a lose-lose proposition. Should it remain too faithful to the source material, it’s considered to be a creatively bankrupt cash grab (and rightly so). However, if it strays too far, uproarious fans declare it a bastardization that disrespects what came before. The margin of error is thinner than your average girl boss, and How To Train Your Dragon isn’t the exception.
The co-director/co-writer of the original and seemingly unable to cut the umbilical, Dean DeBois, has wrought unto us a slightly less energetic, marginally less sincere, recreation of his now fifteen-year-old former glory. This updated version of How To Train Your Dragon follows the original almost shot for shot, except that its energy is lacking, the onscreen “talent” is nominally less talented, or maybe less interested, and there’s far less empathic connection between the characters, the action, and the audience.
Mason Thames, who one or two of you might remember from the Mel Gibson-led Monster Summer, stars as Hiccup. Regrettably, where the 2010 Hiccup benefited from Jay Baruchel’s signature style and unique introverted charisma, Thames’s generic not-quite-ready-for-the-lead vibe isn’t enough to bridge the gap that separates forgettable kid-friendly offerings and classics that the whole family will love.
That said, it’s almost certainly not Thames’ fault, as everyone from the decades-long silver screen veteran, Gerard Butler, down to nameless extras seems a half-beat off from connecting with the material. It was like their souls understood what their paychecks didn’t—this How To Train Your Dragon has almost no value.
At almost 30 minutes longer than the 2010 animated hit, the live-action knockoff manages to do less with its characters, relegating the original's fun and quirky group of misfits to game pieces regularly adjusted to move the plot along.
What this HTTYD does get right are the same high points of the original, but as a retread with less impact. When both your peaks and valleys are lowered, you end up flying just above water. And that’s where this version of How To Train Your Dragon hovers.
Ultimately, this remake is a minimally entertaining, wholly unnecessary, and totally uninspired product that audiences will soon be seeing on the regular when they need only prompt Grok to “Generate a live-action version of (fill in the blank).”
Kids will enjoy 2025's How To Train Your Dragon and, if you haven’t seen the original, you’ll enjoy it more than I did, but no one will remember it in a year.
PARENTAL NOTES
Important Information for Parents
Our Parental Notes flag the material parents may want to know about before pressing play, including profanity, blasphemy, adult content, extreme violence, frightening intensity, hyper-stimulating sequences, and other family-content concerns.
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James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
One point of note- “Hel” is actually the term for the ruler of the Norse underworld, and so the use of that word instead of “Helheim” can make sense. Some sources refer to “Helheim” as “Hel” interchangeably, if I’m not mistaken.
Agreed. I would only argue that children watching can’t tell the difference between the words Hel and Hell being spoken, and thus a better choice would have been Helheim.
Not very woke at all. Almost all of the humans are (gasp!) actually WHITE! The only woke element I saw that quite a few of the Viking warriors were female. Pretty funny. But PC.
The flic itself was good; very family-friendly with no Hollyweird stuff snuck in. Good visuals and good messages. An entertaining two hours, worth going to! We need to support the few kid-friendly movies that are being made.
Oh, and by the way, I didn’t realize Nico Parker had any black in her when I was watching the film. So they seem to have found the whitest black person in Hollywood to check the “black box”. lol
Thesheeplewillhavetheirsay to be fair, there were female Viking warriors historically speaking
This is another one we might rent and not waste money going to the theater. We just watched the animated version last night and it was good enough for my children. They don’t really care if they see the live action version. I was disappointed in the casting choice of Astrid, but it is a trivial aesthetics choice, as I feel she should have stayed a blonde and blue eyed Nordic girl.
I saw it. Pretty similar to the original EXCEPT they actually push mora than one “mODeRn MeSsAgE”.
Hi, I’m a whiny 50-year old white man who’s never touched a woman and has nothing better to do than whine about a children’s movie.
This movie contains FEMALES and a BLACK CHARACTER. Horrible influence. Zero stars
Hi, I’m a 50-year old man who’s never spoken to a woman and has nothing better to do than whine about a children’s movie.
This movie contains FEMALES and a BLACK CHARACTER. Horrible influence. Zero stars
If you don’t like this site you can continue watching your goy filth.
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