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Here we are then. Just as the fad of remaking classic cartoons as live action films shows signs of dying out at Disney, following the poor reception for Snow White, it seems to be starting up at another studio. This frustrating cinematic trend appears to be a metaphorical dragon that cannot be slain, or to refer to a particular reptilian monster featured in another Disney cartoon the new version of which is hopefully being cancelled as we speak, you cut one head off the hydra then another grows in its place. 

Yep, Dreamworks are now in on this game with an updated version of How to Train Your Dragon. Will a photoreal Shrek and Kung Fu Panda follow, can we expect some time in the near future to be discussing the quality of the digital rendered on the skin and hair of the Trolls? Where then? Will we get a live action Bugs Bunny? Wallace & Gromit? South Park?

Here’s the thing though, and I’ll admit to this being a bit of a surprise, this movie is actually great. I mean, yes it is totally unnecessary, the animated original is already flawless, but taken entirely on its own merits it is a really well made, emotional, tense, fun and entertaining movie. 

The reason for this is of course precisely because the original is so good. When a follow up film like this sticks closely to the template established by it’s predecessor then it is really just a case of not messing it up, and with the first one’s director returning they have not messed it up. It is like when Takashi Shimizu redid his 2002 J-horror Ju On: The Grudge in English two years later; everything that was good survived the transition. Then it was a different language, here it is a different medium but the same is true. It’s the same person, it’s the same material, it’s the same vision, it’s pretty much exactly the same design, so it totally works. I’d have been pretty happy sitting in the cinema watching 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon again so since I was effectively sitting in the cinema watching 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon I was pretty happy. 

It is fair to say that while it was great in its original incarnation, it wasn’t necessarily the traits of animation that it relied on (unlike so many of the films Disney have pointlessly updated). The new 2019 Lion King movie really suffered without the incredible expressiveness of the animal’s cartoon faces but you didn’t have that here, it was mostly the human characters that provided any of this and humans can still do that. I say mostly because Toothless is wonderfully expressive with his whole body, like a 800kg, 30 foot, sleek black pussycat but it was CG then and he’s CG now so nothing is lost. The decision not to change his look is a good one, as it is to not really change the look of anything. The other aspects such as the colourful flocks of dragons, the flight sequences, the story and the characterisation are all still present and correct as well. 

I have to say that the casting is spot on too. This is one area in which there is change (although not in the case of Gerard Butler’s Viking Chieftain) but all of the actors manage to capture the existing spirit of the main players while still making the parts totally their own. Mason Thames is very good as protagonist Hiccup (and his relationship with Toothless remains utterly believable) but I’d actually draw out Nick Frost and Nico Parker as Gobber and Astrid as stand outs. Parker brings a bit of welcome, and narratively explained, diversity but more than that she has a great balance of strength, warmth, loyalty, snipe and determination too.

Thinking about it, it is entirely possible that How to Train Your Dragon might have been made in live action in the first place had the special effects and technology been good enough back then (something again that isn’t true of all the films Disney has revamped). I didn’t need this movie, I didn’t want it, but I watched it and kind of I loved it.