How to Train Your Dragon

You often hear it said these days that the ‘recent trend’ of live action versions of previously animated products are a blight on cinema, and you should just watch the original version instead.  But this isn’t a ‘recent trend’ at all – indeed we already had Lord of the Rings in animated format, so why did Peter Jackson feel the need to make his films?  Popeye in the early 80s was unnecessary.  Those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the early 90s were just retreading what the cartoons already did.  Don’t get me started on George of the Jungle, Stuart Little, Casper, The Grinch, Scooby Doo, Transformers, pretty much all the MCU and DCU (which have appeared in animated format over the decades), etc, etc, etc.  “Ah, but those were all drawn from other established properties in other media such as comics or books, so it is merely a re-adaptation!” you may exclaim.   Well, in that case, here we have a re-adaptation of the 2003 novel by Cressida Cowell, How To Train Your Dragon, brought to the screen by writer/director Dean DeBlois who coincidentally worked on previous adaptations in animated format.

The story is the same – in the viking village of Berk life consists of struggling to survive, growing crops, raising livestock, and dealing with the occasional raid by dragons.  The village is led by Stoick the Vast, who is determined to seek out the dragon nest and eradicate the threat permanently.  Stoick’s son, Hiccup, is not imbued with the warrior spirit of his lineage, and is a clumsy embarrassment to his father, working as an assistant to the blacksmith, and coming up with mechanical devices to overcome his physical weaknesses and prove him as worthy of his father’s respect as a warrior.  When Hiccup believes he managed to shoot down a rare Night Fury dragon – much to the disbelief of everyone – he sets off to seek the dragon and prove his worth.  Finding the captive beast, he chooses to free the wounded creature rather than kill it, and starts to bond with the Night Fury, which he names Toothless.  As he studies the dragon, he learns tricks and techniques that help him prove himself in the dragon-fighting classes, whilst also gaining more of an understanding about the real threat dragons offer, and how they could unite man and beast to live in balanced harmony.

With a pretty much beat for beat copy of the animated version, albeit with some extra fleshing out of some of the support characters, this won’t offer any surprises to fans of the 2010 animated offering.  However, don’t let that put you off as what it delivers is a great cast, all the emotional beats that made that earlier adaptation such a joy, and some beautiful visuals throughout – especially the dragons themselves, which feel so real that you start to believe in them thoroughly.

Mason Thames makes for a great Hiccup, capturing his awkwardness to perfection, and Nico Parker as Astrid has all the fire and determination of her animated counterpart, with the pair of leads genuinely bristling with a rival chemistry that works.  Gerard Butler reprises the role he provided the voice for as Stoick, and the array of supports around them include great picks such as Nick Frost, Peter Serafinowicz, Murray McArthur, Julian Dennison, and Bronwyn James, with each granting fun life to their parts.

The beats are the same, the emotional stakes are the same, and the thrills are the same.  The action moments captivate and sweep you up into the clouds along with Hiccup and Toothless, and the whole experience is pure cinematic joy from start to finish.

Yes, we already know the story, but don’t we all love to revisit films we’ve seen before anyway, and so knowledge of a story isn’t really a deciding factor as to whether it is good or not.  Taken on its own merits, this is one of the best family film outings that we’ve had in recent years, and is well worth checking out by old and new fans alike.