How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
An utterly toothless remake
I jokingly say “Cinema is dead” whenever I see a trailer for the latest unnecessary sequel or cash-grabbing live-action remake. But it’s starting to feel like less of a joke.
While I know there is a ton of great, original cinema being made, it seems that it’s becoming increasingly harder to find because of things like…well…the How to Train Your Dragon remake. The film follows Hiccup (Mason Thames), a young, awkward Viking befriending a dragon named Toothless. If this sounds familiar, there’s a reason.
Very close to a shot-for-shot remake of the animated original from 2010, the new How to Train Your Dragon is horrid on several levels. Before I even discuss its faults as a work of “art,” allow me to use this space to lament a little more about the state of Hollywood. The film made over $560 MILLION dollars at the box office. That’s the 5th highest grossing film of the year. Eight of the top 10 highest grossing movies of 2025 are sequels, remakes, or in the case of A Minecraft Movie, based on some preexisting property. I don’t pretend to be a numbers guy, so I’m not able to really break that list down in those terms; what I will say is, as a more creative thinker, it’s discouraging to see a lack of original content represented at the box office.
What frustrates me about remakes like How to Train Your Dragon is exactly that: a lack of creativity. There is nothing fresh or inspired about this film, save the casting of Nico Parker as Astrid. The rest plays like such a pale imitation of the 2010 film, which actually contains some charm and energy. I continue to fail to understand why anyone would choose to watch bland remakes over stylistic originals filled with personality.
This flatness is clear from the opening scene, where a group of dragons attacks a Viking village. Besides being exactly like the opening of the original film, this sequence using shoddy CGI (as does the rest of the film), is lit terribly, and brings none of the emotional stakes it’s intended to. Even the sound mix is faulty. Characters are meant to be running and fighting for their lives, yet their line deliveries feel static, as if nothing is happening around them. There’s a cheapness lingering over the entire production, despite a $150 million budget.
No, cinema isn’t dead, but watching a film this hollow makes me wonder if we’re getting closer to that point. Maybe studios can use the money rolling in from movies like this to bring smaller, more original projects to life. That’s really the only positive spin I can put on a movie this lifeless, or should I say, toothless.
Rating: 1.5/5