First Take: How To Train Your Dragon - the DreamWorks classic somehow nails the landing in live action

 SYNOPSIS: As an ancient threat endangers both Vikings and dragons alike on the isle of Berk, the friendship between Hiccup, an inventive Viking, and Toothless, a Night Fury dragon, becomes the key to both species forging a new future together.

It’s been a good few weeks for Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. Two of their most well known animated projects have been adapted into live action, and somehow, I ended up seeing them back to back as part of a 4 film marathon. 2010’s How To Train Your Dragon spawned a brilliant trilogy for Dreamworks, alongside many TV series, so understandably taking it into an in-camera setting made fans worried - one look at how the various ‘rival’ adaptations have performed with audiences can make a studio executive worried too. They didn’t need to be, because it retains a lot of what made the original so good.

As he did on the original trilogy it is DeBlois writing and directing (this time on his own), and for the remake he’s gone back into the Cressida Cowell books, expanded backstories for characters who didn’t get time in the original film, and eliminated elements of the plot which, if you’ve seen 2 and The Hidden World, do get resolved in future entries. All of this, in just 2 hours 4 minutes, with all killer and no filler. A lot of the iconic setpieces from the original are recreated faithfully, from the first meetings with Toothless, the flight sequences, and having Bill Pope as the DOP really helped with this - understandably it is a very CG heavy film so his knowledge (especially elements he learned making The Jungle Book with Jon Favreau) as a cinematographer definitely enhanced production, alongside the trusty John Powell returning to take his orchestrations from 15 years ago, polish them up, and make them sound even better for the soundtrack.

Understandably the big changes are in the cast for fairly obvious reasons, and they picked some good talents. Mason Thames leads the film incredibly well at just 17 years of age, Nico Parker (daughter of Thandiwe Newton) will only grow as a talent too, and flanked by Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Peter Serafinowicz and a big cast of supporting performers, they got the look, tone, and feel of the film pretty much spot on. Saying that… there’s one character who naturally had to remain unchanged between animation and practical filmmaking: you simply cannot do the Dragons series without Gerard Butler. They used his voice back in 2010 for Stoick, and of course they wanted him back for the live action remake. In essence, this film flies on its own, despite it being an adapation of an adaptation - which is some going for DreamWorks.

THE VERDICT

If you loved the original, you’ll love the remake, and if you’ve never seen the originals, you’ll want to go and watch them while they develop part 2 for a live action release in 2027. Undeniably the strongest possible start to DreamWorks Animation’s adventures in live action, and quitte rightly worth seeing on the big screen.

RATING: 4/5