Cert – PG, Run-time – 2 hours 5 minutes, Director – Dean DeBlois
Young Viking Hiccup (Mason Thames) is the son of the chief (Gerard Butler) and expected to one day be a great dragon slayer, however when he discovers an injured night fury he realises that maybe the creatures aren’t as dangerous as they’re made out to be.
Apparently when starting to put together a film Pixar used to, and perhaps still do, ask why the film was being made in the animated form. What was being done that couldn’t be done in live-action? Sometimes we can be more forgiving towards ideas in animation. In Lilo And Stitch, also recently given the live-action treatment, Stitch doesn’t really look anything like a dog, but we don’t really stop to think about that. In Dreamworks new take on How To Train Your Dragon, six years after the close of the animated trilogy and fifteen years after the first entry (with a remake of the second already greenlit months before the release of this instalment), the opening sequence centres around a night-time dragon attack on the island of Berk.
As characters run around shouting for different weapons to attack the creatures with, and protagonist Hiccup (Mason Thames – who seems to be trying to bring elements of the animated physicality into this film) tries to prove his skills with inventions to take down the dragons rather than dealing with them upfront, I sat thinking about the poor design of the various buildings throughout Berk. If you live near dragons who frequently attack, breathe fire and set your buildings alight, why would you make all of your buildings out of wood? And how are they all rebuilt and perfectly fine by the next morning?
In addition to these questions there’s also the point of what is the live-action bringing to this particular film? And the answer seems to be very little. Written and directed by the original film’s co-writer-director Dean DeBlois the exact same beats are here, just without the same visual flair. The animated films had Roger Deakins as a visual consultant, and so of course had some great shots, but this film feels weighed down by the CGI. There are some good shots here and there, courtesy of Bill Pope, and flight sequences manage to capture some imagination as Hiccup connects with injured night fury dragon Toothless – learning that while he’s being trained to be a dragon slayer maybe the creatures aren’t as dangerous as legend, and his father (Gerard Butler, returning form his voice role), says.
Multiple shots and jokes are repeated without the same impact. There’s enough here that still manages to work and move things along but it still feels very familiar and like there’s very little new brought to this film. As if things are in some form of safe cruise control. But by not wanting to change too much almost nothing is changed. John Powell returns to do the score and on a number of occasions its his music which helps to lift things and bring more of an effect to them, making it perhaps the strongest player in the film; especially considering the lack of detail given to a number of supporting characters, including Toothless. Even love-interest and presumed-future-dragon-slater Astrid (Nico Parker) comes across as one of the most wholly unlikable figures I’ve seen for quite some time, with a complete 180-degree flip which just makes her feel like a narcissist.
Yet, even amongst all of this there’s still an adequate film at hand. And likely that’s because of just how little has been changed, and so for the most part the remake is playing along lines that it knows works, or at least have worked in the past. But, it’s not enough to create anything other than a generally fine, if patchy, film. For when the sequel inevitably comes round, I hope it takes a few more swings towards originality and doing something different.
Perfectly fine, but largely because it relies too much on being a near copy of the original animated film, this live-action take on How To Train Your Dragon is watchable but has a number of bumps along the way as it struggles to find its own identity.
Just A Little Bit Random 