★★★ (3 out of 4)
Talk about a relatable movie for Father’s Day and beyond. A skinny, misfit teen can’t get along with his big, bossy father. It’s a tale as old as time. Yeah, but what if you’re just a kid who loves his new pet and Big Daddy wants to kill it dead and all its brothers and sisters? Then you’ve got a problem. Actually then you’ve got “How to Train Your Dragon,” the live-action retake of the animated 2010 box-office hit, only now human actors are playing cartoon characters. Too real? Relax. It’s rated PG. Hollywood isn’t interested—at least for the moment—in turning bedtime stories into cinema trauma centers. It’s riding a different wave.
"If you look past the soggy overlength (it’s 27 minutes longer than the cartoon version), the cutesy joke overload, and a few hard bumps on the road from fantasy to reality, 'How to Train Your Dragon' gets the job done."
I’m talking about the bull market in live-action makeovers of classic family IP. Have you seen the numbers on “Lilo & Stitch,” closing in on a billion bucks in worldwide ticket sales? You can’t blame “How to Train Your Dragon” for wanting in on that action. What counts is how well the redo turns profit motive into a crazy fun time at the movies for the kid in all of us. Is that too much to ask? Apparently not. If you look past the soggy overlength (it’s 27 minutes longer now), the cutesy joke overload, and a few hard bumps on the road from fantasy to reality, “How to Train Your Dragon” gets the job done.
Actually, the animated “How to Train Your Dragon” got the job done three times, spawning two sequels that improved on the original. Today, 15 years later, even kids are wise to the toxic tricks of marketing. Yet “Dragon” has a core of feeling that holds them captive. Plus, this live-action thing is a new wrinkle, beefed up with improved special effects, higher resolution and the confidence to yell, “hell yeah,” if the kids ask if the movie has something to blow the doors off.
The truth is kids don’t give a damn about how much a movie costs or what it makes. They’ll sit still for world building, character development and even a moral lesson with a sugar rim, as long it doesn’t take too long to get to the fireworks and the scenes of wonder that make them drop the thin layer of cynicism they wear and pop their eyes with an expression universally translated as WOW. “How to Train Your Dragon," following the lead of the timeless Cressida Cowell book from which it's adapted, has the wow factor covered.
It helps that Dean Deblois, a co-creator with Chris Sanders of the OG “Dragon,” is in the director’s chair (The pair also created “Lilo & Stitch,” so if you think Stitch resembles a certain dragon here you won’t be far wrong.). It helps even more that the movie looks spectacular in every detail, opening on the Isle of Berk where Vikings and dragons do battle.
And who better than Gerard Butler to play Stoick the Vast, the red-bearded Viking father and dragonslayer with the imposing size to match his inflated ego? Butler voiced the blustering Stoick with gusto in the trilogy, but here he is in the flesh, huffing and puffing and blowing down every house that stands in his way.
No wonder his wimp son Hiccup is scared. Actor Mason Thames lacks the tremulous voice that the appealing Jay Baruchel brought to the trilogy. But he works his way into the role and our good graces in short order. So does Nico Parker as his dream girl Astrid (previously voiced by America Ferrera). She ridicules Hiccup’s need to impress his meanie dad. She knows that Hiccup can’t cut it as a dragonslayer, especially when he cares for a wounded Night Fury, a dragon rarely seen by Vikings due to its speed and near invisibility at night. Hiccup befriends and names him Toothless (the creature’s teeth retract when he’s scared or angry) and fixes his injured tail so he can learn to fly again, just like this movie must learn to fly without animation.
The movie dips dangerously when Toothless and Hiccup stop soaring through the skies and start acting like a Hallmark card, preaching that Vikings and dragons must live in peace. Nice sentiment, but Stoick isn’t having it, leading to a brutal confrontation. Sound familiar? It should since the live-action “Dragon” and the animated version are practically word for word.
OK, “How to Train Your Dragon” isn’t perfect. Neither was “Lilo & Stitch,” roundly dissed by a few kiddie critics I know for leaving out the enthralling villainy of Captain Gantu. Ironically, “Dragon” deserves praise for what it leaves in, the enthralling connection between an estranged father and son learning to heal by watching how non-humans do it. Now there’s a lesson for Father’s Day and every day. And it hits you like a shot in the heart.