How to Train Your Dragon (2025) might be the best live-action reimagining of an animated film ever. It’s also an incredible film.
How to Train Your Dragon is regarded as one of the better animated films in the last 20-some years. Many people were worried when they found out they were making a live-action one, including me. It seems everything nowadays is a remake, a reboot, or a sequel.
Live-action reimagining of animated films seems like the more creative thing to do compared to just remaking a movie, but this style has definitely fallen short in the past. We even saw it happen this year with the Snow White movie. Disney could definitely take notes from How to Train Your Dragon (2025), as Snow White live-action is one of the lowest-rated movies on IMDb currently.
How to Train Your Dragon (2025) is a great film for the family. It has action that anyone can enjoy, no matter how old you are. I had a great time watching it and was thoroughly entertained the entire movie. A lot of these kinds of movies seem to be geared only towards children. It’s really hard to make a movie that you can take your kid to and still enjoy yourself as an adult.
How to Train Your Dragon (2025) definitely has enough going forward that everyone can enjoy something from it. It’s really well written, as every scene is important; there isn’t any bloat in it at all. Even though the film is over two hours, it still felt worth the time. When you have something that’s well written, it’s easier for everyone to enjoy it.
That’s precisely what this movie does; the motivations of the characters are very clear-cut, and you always understand what’s going on. The film is simple in its premise, but when applying it to real life and seeing the metaphors that it creates, it’s definitely something really special. I left the cinema smiling and also left thinking about the real-world events it shadows.
How to Train Your Dragon (2025) also did a great job of casting. This was going to be really hard, as they couldn’t use most of the actors and actresses from the animated film due to age differences. But the cast they ended up going with was outstanding, especially with the Vikings in the story, like Gerald Butler.
It took me a minute to even notice that it was him because of how good the prosthetics and makeup were. When it comes to how the kids were cast, I thought they were excellent as well. I really enjoyed Nico Parker’s performance as Astrid. She’s an up-and-coming young actress who also did incredibly in The Last of Us television show.
And with The Last of Us show, she was only in the first episode, but she played a fundamental character and absolutely nailed it. I see great things coming for her in the future for sure. My only real complaint with this movie is that she kind of outshone the lead, Mason Thames, who played Hiccup. He did well but didn’t excel like she did.
Beyond the great casting and writing, How to Train Your Dragon (2025) looks and sounds incredible. Although there’s some CGI, it seems like they went to some pretty cool real locations to film some scenes. And when we see the CGI, it’s not that bad, as Toothless, the dragon, looks pretty realistic. There are some scenes where the coloring is incredible, and it looks beautiful, given the landscape they are currently in.
How to Train Your Dragon (2025) goes for that classic Nordic Viking world book, which is sometimes portrayed as dark and gritty, but this time it was colorful and beautiful due to the scenery. It really helps you feel like you’re there in the movie, seeing all the great longhouses, longboats, mountains, and beautiful skylines. It was definitely gorgeous to look at.
A great component of How to Train Your Dragon (2025) is the score. When that score gets going, and the film is showing these beautiful scenes, it’s something else. It reminds me of some great epic classics, such as Braveheart, Star Wars, and even epic video games like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.
In fact, it kind of reminds me of Skyrim with all the dragons roaming around, and the storyline is similar in a small way to the game as well. With Skyrim being one of my favorite games ever, I definitely love this. Along with Vikings being one of my favorite pieces of history, I definitely loved that part as well.
There were parts of this movie where I was genuinely on the edge of my seat. I haven’t seen the animated How to Train Your Dragon since it came out when I was a lot younger. So I didn’t necessarily remember how the film ended. The film does a great job of building tension and raising the stakes higher and higher as the film goes on.
Watching it for the first time, I was definitely entertained and curious to see where the story was going at almost every beat. I was worried it was just going to be another animated kids’ film, but it went beyond that and was just a great film in general.
I remember the animated film being really good as well, and now I need to go back and watch it, but it seems How to Train Your Dragon (2025) has gone on to make more money than its animated counterpart. Because of that, they have announced they are going to make a sequel to How to Train Your Dragon (2025). They never made a sequel to the animated one, so all the ideas coming forward will be completely original.
Suffice it to say, I’m excited to see what they do in the second film. This first film was so good. I think they could make multiple films if they really wanted to. Seeing the kids grow up will be really interesting, as they laid the groundwork for some pretty interesting and unique characters.
Every character had their own little thing going for them, and most of them had great character arcs as well. That’s a big thing, as character arcs in these kinds of movies can be pretty cliché. But in this movie, I definitely felt like they were well-deserved by the end of the film.
The characters felt like they worked hard to become the people that were at the end of the movie. The stakes felt real and definitely had severe consequences, and it was not just an everyone-gets-to-live-happily-ever-after type of thing.
Like Superman did earlier this year, I believe that we need more movies with an optimistic outlook. The problem is that so many movies are gloom and doom nowadays, which I believe has its time and place, but we are kind of living in a gloom and doom world right now.
Seeing a movie with a positive message that hopefully kids can reciprocate one day, along with adults, is awesome. I really hope people go and see this film and are able to really resonate with its message.
I felt the same way about Superman, and it’s definitely good to have these movies playing in theaters, and they are doing well, money-wise. Both Superman and How to Train Your Dragon (2025) crossed $500 million at the box office, showing that people are definitely looking for more positive, well-written films nowadays.
