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Film Review — How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
A near shot-for-shot remake begs the obvious question: What’s the point?
If you look up “superfluous” in the dictionary, you’ll find the new take on How to Train Your Dragon. An utterly unnecessary live-action remake of Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois’s 2010 animated gem, this features DeBlois at the helm once more. Apparently, he didn’t want to see anyone else’s version of the story. I understand that to a point, given how misguided changes can create a Snow White (2025) situation. But the 2010 film made significant departures from Cressida Cowell’s books, so narrative or thematic fidelity ought not to be an issue. A because-we-can, near shot-for-shot remake, has no good artistic reason to exist. It’s as pointless as Gus Van Sant’s 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Psycho (1960).
The only legitimate creative reason to revisit animated classics is to craft significantly different takes that aren’t misguided or cynical attempts at cash grabs. Guillermo Del Toro’s highly personal stop-motion take on Pinocchio (2022) is a case in point. By contrast, this film feels more akin to watching fans of the original cosplaying a recreation. What makes it doubly pointless is how much of this new version is animated, in any case. There’s very little “live-action” amid the sea of CGI islands, creatures, and other…
