This “How to Train Your Dragon” Has No Reason to Exist

How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois, 2025) 1 out of 5 stars

Though I have not read the source text (nor its sequels/prequels/companion volumes) by Cressida Cowell, I thoroughly enjoyed the animated How to Train Your Dragon film series. It was a trilogy (with associated made-for-TV supporting shows) featuring some of the most gorgeous 3D animation I have ever seen. In addition, director Dean DeBlois and DreamWorks not only wowed my eyeballs, but successfully pulled at my heartstrings, too.

Given that the first franchise entry came out in theaters just 15 years ago, the time hardly seems ripe for a remake. Yet that is what we get with the 2025 “live action” version (which comes with plenty of CGI) of How to Train Your Dragon. At least DeBlois is back in the helm, but this does not appear to be a good thing. From start to finish, the new movie feels tired and recycled (because it is). Worse, the cast is not up to the task of replacing the original ensemble (though Gerard Butler returns in the same role as before).

I’m not sure whence the mania for doing things like this, which is no doubt expensive and, in theory, could tarnish the commercial longevity of the initial adaptation. It’s not as if this latest iteration changes anything substantial (though it is almost 30 minutes longer), either in tone or in plot. Instead, it’s the same basic narrative, only without any sense of urgency or drive. I’ll refrain from summarizing the details, other than thus: boy from dragon-hating Viking society meets dragon, befriends him, and eventually changes the world.

The digital effects do not impress, either. Give me back those beautiful images of yore, please, which continue to stun. What we see on the screen this time—particularly in the flying and battle scenes—looks flat and, unforgivably, highlights the artificiality of the background vis-à-vis actors in the foreground. On top of that, the accompanying dialogue is mixed in a way that both underscores weak performances and delivers a sound design with voices that retain the empty quality of a recording studio (which is where they were recorded, for sure, though a skillfully made production would make us forget this).

If you haven’t seen the 2010 How to Train Your Dragon, it’s quite possible that this one will charm you. After all, the coming-of-age story of a young misfit struggling against societal expectations remains powerful. But if you are, like me, a fan of the series, I predict you’ll ask all the same questions I did, which boil down to one essential, plaintive, “Why?”

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator, as well as Film Festival Today's Editor. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.