The movie-going audience has been inundated with live-action remakes lately, mostly from Disney. The unscientific consensus, at least for the latest films, Snow White and Lilo & Stitch, has been less than stellar. Why take beloved animated classics and try to “update” them for viewers of today? Ok, I did like the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast.
How to Train Your Dragon, from Dreamworks and Universal Pictures, stands apart from the live-action remake crowd in that it stays amazingly faithful to the original 2010 animated film and captures the same pathos, humor, and growing pains that fans of the franchise have grown accustomed to.
That’s due, in part, to the return of original writer/co-director, Dean DeBlois, as co-writer and director. Gerard Butler also reprises his voice role from the animated film as Stoick the Vast, leader of the Vikings of the Isle of Berk.
Hiccup (Mason Thames) feels out of place among his Viking kin. He’s Stoick’s gangly teenage son, but he lacks the physicality and drive to become a dragon-slayer, much to the disappointment of his father. His talents lie elsewhere, but his helpful inventions get little notice or appreciation from anyone around him. He desperately wants to belong, to contribute to the safety of the village from the dragons, but when he manages to bring down the dreaded Night Fury, he can’t bring himself to kill it.
Thus begins the unlikely friendship between Hiccup and Toothless (as he names the dragon). What he learns from their interaction helps him find new ways to approach the village’s dilemma. What is exponentially more difficult is changing the dragon-killing mindset ingrained in their way of life.
Mason Thames, a fan of the animated franchise from his childhood, presents a vulnerable Hiccup who grows into his own, defying his father, not for the sake of defiance, but digging deep to find the courage to forge his own path, being authentically his own self. Butler, even more so than in his voice performance, brings depth to Stoick as an adult who’s willing to admit when he’s wrong.
Hiccup’s crush, Astrid (Nico Parker), is the ultimate cool kid. She’s favored to become the best of the trainee dragon slayers, but her posse of other wannabees don’t hold a flame to her talent. When Hiccup brings new strategies to subduing the dragons during their training, she gets suspicious of his surprise success and follows him into the forest. Upon meeting Toothless, Astrid shows her own strength by being the first to change her thinking about the dragons.
Ultimately, How to Train Your Dragon is a father-son, coming-of-age story that is as timely now as it was in 2010. Even more inspiring, it speaks to some of our deepest human desires, the need for love and belonging. When we give in to the unrealistic expectations of others to the detriment of our true selves, we are diminished. The flip side of that is the injustice of putting pressure on another to live up to our desires for them, even if their own desires don’t match ours. That Hiccup had the courage to stand up for himself and Stoick had the humility to own up to his mistakes makes this movie and its story timeless.
