How to train your Dragon (2025)

Director: Dean DeBlois

Starring: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, Nick Frost

As an ancient threat endangers both Vikings and dragons alike on the isle of Berk, the friendship between Hiccup, an inventive Viking, and Toothless, a Night Fury dragon, becomes the key to both species forging a new future together.

If you’ve seen the original 2010 animated film with the same title, then you’ll know how this movie will play out scene for scene, because it literally is copy/paste. It is exactly the same script (with the same director); just live action. You might think this is a totally unnecessary movie, and in a way I suppose it is, but hell, it looks so darn good with live actors!!

You probably know the story. Hiccup is a teenage boy who lives in the Viking village of Burke. They don’t have pests like rats; they have dragons. And Vikings and dragons have always been fighting and killing one other. Hiccup is unlike any of the other Vikings and a bit of an outcast, but he dreams of being ‘like the others’.

When their village is once again attacked by dragons, Hiccup is determined to prove himself by killing the elusive Night Fury dragon. He manages to hit the dragon, but it flies away – and no-one else saw it. The next day he goes looking for the dragon, and finds it badly injured. When he can’t bring himself to killing the dragon, he instead decides to help it, and the bond that forms between man and dragon is beautiful! Hiccup names the dragon ‘Toothless’ (due to its retracting teeth). Toothless steals the show in every scene!!

Hiccup has to keep Toothless a secret, and in the process he learns dragons are not as bad as they’re made out to be. But his dad Stoick is determined to rid their village of dragons once and for all and searches for the dragon’s nest.

The visuals are insanely good!!! Not since the first ‘Avatar’ have I seen visuals this good, and I won’t be surprised if ‘How to train your Dragon’ is an Oscar contender for Best Visual Effects. I mean, it truly is astonishing how they managed to bring the animated fantasy to the big screen as a live action adaptation. It once again proves how far CGI developed, and that nothing is impossible anymore.

The casting is also really good. Mason Thames is fantastic as Hiccup, and I found it so appropriate for Gerard Butler to be cast as Stoick – the same character he voiced in the animated film. I also really enjoyed Nick Frost as Stoick’s righthand man, Gobber.

If you’re into fantasy adventures, this is a must watch film, and will appeal to young and old alike. It is a stunning film sure to win several awards. This is by far one of the best fantasy films this decade. (Even so, I still prefer the animated film. Animated films are just more endearing.)

Would I watch it again? Yes, definitely.