‘How to Train Your Dragon' is the best live-action adaptation ever, but some parents may hate it
Now this is how you make a live-action adaptation of a beloved animated classic.
While Disney's live-action remakes of films from its animated library have been a mixed bag, DreamWorks' reimagining of its 2010 'How to Train Your Dragon' is the first that actually might be better than the original.
Directed by Dean DeBlois, the filmmaker behind not only all three 'Dragon' animated films but also the original ' Lilo & Stitch ' (2002), the new version excels because it makes its teenage protagonist deeper and more mature — and its monsters extra frightening.
In fact, this 'How to Train Your Dragon,' while rated PG feels like PG-13 and might be too scary for some children, even those who love the original animated feature. These CGI dragons are truly terrifying. But with 'Jurassic World Rebirth' arriving in theaters soon, that's the cinematic world we live in.
The story remains mostly unchanged. Hiccup (Mason Thames, star of ' The Black Phone '), the sensitive, peace-loving son of the fierce Viking king Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, who voiced the same character in the animated films), struggles to find his place in Berk, the seaside mountain village that is under constant threat from dragon attacks.
Stoick, disappointed in Hiccup, hopes to toughen the kid up by enrolling him in dragon-fighting school. Among his classmates is his school crush Astrid (Nico Parker) and the jocular Fishlegs (Julian Dennison, seen earlier this year in ' Y2K ' and the star of 2016's ' Hunt for the Wilderpeople ').
Hiccup's desire to kill dragons takes a serious hit when he meets Toothless, a small dragon caught in a trap in a wooded area. Instead of killing the dragon, Hiccup frees him, then makes daily visits to understand the creature.
The movie doesn't succeed unless the dragons are good, and the team behind this 'How to Train Your Dragon' hit the mark. The CGI work and DeBlois' swooping, dizzying camera work — this is the director's first live-action film — during the battles are top notch.
While the story is predictable even to those who haven't seen the original, the strength of this remake is its thematic plea for cultural understanding and the art of diplomacy. For generations, it's been dragons against humans, but why are dragons attacking? The Viking king is right to strengthen his village's defenses, and to train his subjects in the art of war. But is war the only solution or is there another way?
As Hiccup, the 17-year-old Mason is sensitive and appealing, a young boy who goes from dazed and confused to meeting the moment — and teaching dad a thing or two. Butler brings some touching moments to the proud king's gradual understanding of his son.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Miley Cyrus Lost Major Film Role To Selena Gomez After Penis Cake Controversy
Miley Cyrus has opened up about losing high-profile jobs over controversies earlier on in her career. The Grammy winner is currently on the promo trail for her new album Something Beautiful, and recently sat down for an interview with Monica Lewinsky for her podcast Reclaiming. During the conversation, Miley spoke about having her privacy violated from an early age, and how numerous leaked photos and videos cost her several big gigs. '[There was] a bong video when I was 16, and that cost me a very large, multi-multi-million dollar Walmart deal,' she explained. 'I had to email the Walmart CEO an apology for being 16 and smoking weed… which most 16-year-olds do. But my email address at the time was 'Miley loves weed'... and it actually wasn't weed, it was Salvia, but I needed to write to him, 'I'm sorry for smoking weed'. And my mum was like, 'what the hell? What's your email? You have to change that!'. 'He was old, so I changed my email to 'Miley loves old people'. It didn't help very much, I still got fired. But these things that you know… to have adults firing a teenager for smoking pot, and you know when they were 16 or 17 they were smoking weed. 'The difference is, I didn't know I was being filmed. I might have known someone was filming and not cared because I was high on Salvia, but I didn't know that my camera would then get stolen at a teen party, because that's how it got leaked, my backpack got stolen at a party.' Miley then reflected on another controversy from the first few years of her career, when TMZ published pictures of her celebrating then-boyfriend Liam Hemsworth's birthday with a penis-shaped cake. 'As a joke, I got my boyfriend a penis cake for his birthday,' she recalled. 'And I got fired. I was the lead actress in Hotel Transylvania, and they fired me, and replaced me, because I had made an inappropriate adult joke. But I was 18! So yes, I was fine to work in a kids' movie, but I [wasn't] a kid.' Miley was replaced in the film by fellow Disney album Selena Gomez, who went on to return for three big-screen sequels. 'What felt ridiculous to me about getting fired [for] a penis cake is that they sell penis cakes for all bachelorettes. In Nashville, Tennessee, you can get penis cakes,' she quipped. 'It's not that big of a deal. 'So, I thought, 'this is a very simple, not vulgar, joke. This is silly, and you can do this for all bachelorette parties'... it felt ridiculous. 'To be fired for regular things that girls my age [do], but at that time, I wasn't someone that was appropriate for kids, even though that was my personal life. And that photo, again, only revealed itself because the camera had been stolen.' Miley has been getting reflective throughout the promo cycle for her latest album. In the last week, she made headlines when she revealed that Madonna was poised to mud-wrestle Miranda Kerr in one music video from her Bangerz era, before her record label stepped in, also making a surprising admission about another of her collaborators, Dua Lipa. Miley Cyrus Reveals How She Tried To Save Relationship With Liam Hemsworth We Can't Stop Thinking About Madonna Mud Wrestling In The Miley Cyrus Video That Never Was Miley Cyrus Breaks Silence On Popular Jennifer Lawrence Flowers Music Video Theory
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘Materialists' Filmmaker Celine Song Knows Something About Love
The best romantic comedies in and of themselves become timeless Bibles of life. Woody Allen's Annie Hall didn't just speak to the 1970s single folk but also to any teenager in a future era going through heartbreak. More from Deadline 'How To Train Your Dragon' Won't Be Laggin' At Summer Box Office With $175M-$185M Global Start For Live-Action Redo - Preview 'Materialists' Review: Dakota Johnson Measures Value Of Love Between Chris Evans And Pedro Pascal in Celine Song's Sublime Romcomdram From Grammy Nominated Hip Hop Artist To Indie Filmmaker With 'Paradise Records': The Rise Of Logic - Crew Call Podcast Ditto for 2009's 500 Days of Summer: It may have been about millennials and for millennials, but carried themes about the pursuit of love that any fortysomething could relate to. And, so, we arrive at Celine Song's Materialists which is a deconstruction of the singledom that's absolutely now, steeped in its social media marketability and posh wants, but at the end of the day it's the raw, shabby, sincere form of love which wins out. In turning the romcom on its head (though Jane Austen's Emma does come to mind), Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a high-end matchmaker in NYC who contends with her clients lofty wants in a mate. Lucy, who knows everything there is about marketability in the game of courtship, falls for the ultimate unicorn in Pedro Pascal's ultimate rich dude, Harry. But then Lucy's ex, John (an amazing, no-holds-barred Chris Evans) reenters the picture. He doesn't have Harry's wallet, but, man, he knows what makes Lucy tick (beer and soda). Before she was an Oscar nominated filmmaker, Song was a matchmaker ten years ago. 'I learned more about people in those six months, than in any other part of my life,' she tells us today on Crew Call. Though she doesn't consider herself an expert on love, you can't deny her knowledge. Move over, Leo Buscaglia. 'Love is a completely mysterious thing that we don't have a solution for,' says Song about the difference between dating and finding the love of your life. 'Love is something that humbles us, that ask us to surrender, it's the one that asks us to be our purist, most simple self,' Song shares, 'When love is offered to you, all you can say is 'Deal'. You can say 'Yes, deal. I want this love in my life.' Materialists opens this Friday. Best of Deadline 'Stick' Release Guide: When Do New Episodes Come Out? 'Stick' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The Apple TV+ Golf Series 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
How Disney's AI lawsuit could shift the future of entertainment
The battle over the future of AI-generated content escalated on Wednesday as two Hollywood titans sued a fast-growing AI start-up for copyright infringement. Disney and Universal, whose entertainment empires include Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel and Despicable Me, sued Midjourney, claiming it wrongfully trained its image-generating AI models on the studios' intellectual property.
