Movie review: the new ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ is a rare remake that earns its wings

This remake is not interested in subverting its own legend. It recreates many of the original’s most iconic scenes: the fish-sharing moment, the wordless bonding sequences, the soaring flight through the clouds—but filters them through a more human lens. Visually, it is sumptuous. Cinematographer Bill Pope captures Berk not as a cartoon world inflated to IMAX size, but as a harsh, wind-carved land dotted with firelight and fog. When Hiccup and Toothless finally take flight, the result is nothing but awe, a physical and emotional lightness that is earned.

Crucially, the dragons still feel like dragons. Unlike the CGI dead eyes of The Lion King, these creatures straddle the line between believability and myth. Toothless, in particular, retains just enough of his animated expressiveness to remain emotionally legible; a marvel, somewhere between a panther, a cat and a curious child.

Not everything translates cleanly. The slapstick humour that worked in the animated version sometimes lands with an awkward thud in live-action form. There’s a stiffness to some of the early scenes, as if the film is still adjusting to its own new skin. And viewers who grew up with the 2010 version may find themselves caught in a kind of vertigo: this is both the film they know and not, and its closeness can be mildly disconcerting.

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But as it settles in, the film begins to do something rather beautiful. Astrid, portrayed by Nico Parker, goes beyond being a romantic interest; this time, she is more natural, a co-conspirator. The dynamic between Hiccup and Stoick, always the emotional axis of the story, feels more bruised and lived-in now. There’s real friction, and real grace, in their reconciliation.

And that’s the win of this remake: it doesn’t chase reinvention for its own sake. Instead, it treats the original story as a myth worth retelling. What the live-action of How to Train Your Dragon offers is novelty and clarity. It reminds us why we were drawn to this world in the first place.

By the final act, when dragons and Vikings fight not against each other but for each other, the film achieves that rare thing in blockbuster cinema: sincerity without sentimentality. It’s no surprise a sequel is already in the works. If future instalments follow this same compass (careful craft, emotional precision and a bit of wind under the wings), they might just chart a new course through old skies.

How to Train Your Dragon is open at cinemas on June 11.

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