How To Train Your Dragon

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2

Rated: PG

Directed by: Dean DeBlois

Written by: Dean DeBlois

Produced by: Marc Platt, Dean DeBlois, Adam Siegel

Starring: Mason Thames, Gerard Butler, Nico Parker, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Ruth Codd, Peter Serafinowicz, Murray McArthur.

‘Stop trying so hard to be something you’re not.’

How to Train Your Dragon is just that, but the live action version of the original animation released back in 2010.

It was good to see Toothless again.  But it took me a while to get into the film.

Growing up in Berk is tough, especially when the pests are dragons and being told by the Chief, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), who fights dragons with his fists and happens to be Hiccup’s father that, ‘The dragon will always, always go for the kill.’

But Vikings don’t run away from fights, they start them.

The firefighters are the cool kids of Berk: Astrid (Nico Parker) who shames them all with her dragon fighting skills, Snotlout (Gabriel Howell) just wanting to impress his father, twins, Ruffnut (Bronwyn James) and Tuffnut (Harry Trevaldwyn) and ‘big bag of wool’, Fishlegs (Julian Dennison). And of course, Hiccup (Mason Thames) desperate to be part of the tribe but remaining a constant disappointment to his father.

Always trying to impress, Hiccup invents a contraption like a double-header sling shot that manages to snag the feared and illusive Night Fury.

Meet Toothless.

The gist of the story is to stop trying so hard to be something you’re not.

With the Trials coming up, to prove the next generation worthy of fighting the dragons, Hiccup wants to impress his dad, but maybe not in the same way Vikings have in the past.

There’re some thrills here, riding alongside Toothless as he flies along cliffs to then dive straight towards the ocean.

The live action combined with the VFX, SFX and dragon puppetry is seamless with the added beauty of real-world locations like the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Scotland showing vast skies filled with fog or clouds, light dancing off rock faces and fire erupting from volcanoes.

There’s a build to what now feels like the classic story of when Hiccup met Toothless, of overcoming differences to work together.  And all that.

Aimed at a younger audience, the build felt ho hum at times because, we know how the story’s going to go.

I didn’t get swept up into the film until those flying scenes, and of course the reintroduction of Toothless, hissing like a cat.

The younger crowd in the audience, however, were avid fans and there was applause at the film’s end.  And, admittedly, a big smile from me.

One of those feel-good movies.