I know what I said, folks.

For those just tuning in, I’ve publicly sworn off any further Disney live-action remakes. I’ve written the same review too many times and the experiment has repeatedly failed to produce anything memorable or viable in the long-term, even after the remakes inexplicably continue to make billions in the short-term. I’m tired of watching Disney deliver the worst possible answers to questions nobody was asking, all to justify a fresh new revenue stream of merchandise from a nostalgic IP.

But if I’m so sick and fed up with this bullshit from Disney, why am I indulging in the exact same bullshit from Dreamworks?

Hell, one could argue that How to Train Your Dragon (2025) is a far more egregious case in point. After all, Universal just opened a real-life Isle of Berk as a theme park. This live-action remake is quite literally a commercial for a theme park, to a shameless extent that none of the Disney live-action remakes ever were. Moreover, the original animated film came out in 2010, which is far more recent than any of the films that Disney ever rehashed.

Yet for all of that, there were two key reasons I wanted to check this one out. First and foremost, Dean DeBlois. One of the original writer/directors on the first movie stepped up to write/exec produce/direct the remake. At the very least, this means that someone at the C-suite gave a shit and recognized that this has to be done right. At most, it could potentially mean that the original filmmaker saw some means to improve upon the original classic, which is very different from someone else coming in to fix the movie until it’s broken.

Which brings me to the second main point. Yes, I’ve gone on record multiple times to say that the original animated HTTYD films comprise one of the greatest cinematic trilogies in history. I’ve also gone on record stating that the first film had some glaring narrative flaws, and animation that was already starting to show its age by the second film’s release. Good as the first movie is, it’s not a masterpiece on par with the fabled Disney Renaissance of the ’90s, and it’s not as good as the progressively better sequels.

So yeah, if Master DeBlois wants to take a crack at improving on his original work after fifteen years’ worth of experience and hindsight, I’m game for it. And what did we end up getting?

Well, to start with, we got a movie that’s 25 minutes longer. Don’t get me wrong, the remake still runs at a brisk 125 minutes, but that’s still significantly more than the 98 minutes of the original. (Animated films are often much shorter, after all, due to restraints on the budget and the target audience’s attention span.)

Naturally, the film goes over the entire plot of the original film beat-for-beat. It’s all here, and more or less exactly as it was. More to the point, it means that everything good about the original film is still good here. Everything you know and love about the Hiccup/Toothless relationship (with Mason Thames taking over for Hiccup) is still sweetly endearing and deeply satisfying to watch. Hiccup’s relationship with his father (complete with Gerard Butler reprising Stoick the Vast) is still complicated in that poignant and familiar way.

If you loved the original film, everything you loved is still here. Along with an additional 25 minutes. But what’s truly great about this remake is that the additional material doesn’t water down what’s already there. In fact, that additional runtime is used to accomplish precisely the one thing I wished these filmmakers would do: Fix what didn’t work the first time around.

Right off the bat, the intro puts a much bigger emphasis on the pecking order of Hiccup and his eventual peers (with Nico Parker stepping in for Astrid, alongside Gabriel Howell, Julian Dennison, Bronwyn James, and Harry Trevaldwyn as the other young dragon training rivals). While the opening of the original film did show these kids helping to put out fires, the remake dedicates a brief sequence entirely to showing them as a fire-fighting unit, a highly coveted position for the children of the village. At the same time, while Hiccup was always an inventor at heart, the sequel is far more clear in establishing Hiccup as the apprentice blacksmith, sharpening and maintaining all the weapons while everyone else gets to go out and use them.

Hiccup of the original movie had a serious double-standard problem, because it seemed at once like everyone expected him to be a grand heavyweight dragon fighter while also trying to hold him back from that objective. In the remake, it’s much more obvious that everyone is trying to steer Hiccup away from dragon fighting and into blacksmithing. Even so, that doesn’t change the fact that everyone is disappointed that Hiccup can’t live up to his father, and nobody is more upset about that than Hiccup himself. Furthermore, by establishing the other kids as part of a team (albeit a dysfunctional one), it cements Hiccup as a misfit underdog.

The end result is that while all of this was in the original film, it makes so much more sense this time. And it doesn’t stop there either.

The additional runtime gives the Hiccup/Astrid romance arc more room to unfold naturally. It shows more of Hiccup demonstrating his newfound abilities to subdue dragons without killing them — to the envy of his bickering and highly competitive classmates — thus the adoration and attention he once coveted becomes an annoyance. There’s more screentime given to Snoutlout and his father Spitelout (respectively played by Howell and Peter Serafinowicz) to show how these small-minded and confrontational kids are the direct product of their small-minded and confrontational parents. Sure, there was always the implication that it wasn’t just Hiccup and Stoick, but seeing another toxic father/son relationship helps confirm that this is a greater cultural issue. Oh, and Gobber (now played by Nick Frost) plays a much greater role as a friend and adviser to Stoick, so he’s not just an exposition machine anymore.

I can’t possibly overstate what a difference it made to get that additional half-hour and to see that extra time used so wisely. The weakest part of the original film was easily the culture surrounding Hiccup, and the remake does so much more to establish Berk as a traditionalist culture that doesn’t question whatever they think they know. Stoick and his fellow vikings were always a militaristic culture that acts entirely out of fear, rage, ignorance, and pride; but that comes through so much more loudly and clearly.

Speaking of loud and clear, I was so freaking ecstatic to hear that John Powell came back to score the remake, and he sure as hell did not disappoint. Powell really is the unsung hero of this franchise, delivering another round of soaring and iconic music. With all due respect to the cast and crew, it’s Powell who serves as the emotional engine powering so much of this movie.

Which brings us to the cast. Mason Thames once again proves himself to be a marvelous young up-and-comer (see also: The Black Phone), and I dearly hope Hollywood treats this kid well. And fuck the haters, Nico Parker utterly nails the role of Astrid to the wall (though again, it helped a great deal that the additional screen time gave her more to work with). Nick Frost is great fun as always, and of course Gerard Butler made Stoick look effortless.

Unfortunately, for all the filmmakers’ efforts to the contrary, the other kids still have a nasty habit of coalescing into a great big unfunny blob of comic relief. Yes, the actors all clearly understood their respective assignments. Yes, the additional screen time did help to give the characters a bit more personality. Yes, I know we need a crew of this size to establish Hiccup as an underdog and to make it more impressive when they eventually come over to fight for his side. But it’s still not enough. They’re still annoying, and it’s still excessive to have so many characters squabbling with each other over nothing.

As a case in point, did we really need the twins? We couldn’t have just one other character, it had to be two characters bickering with each other long past the point when they really should shut up? Sweet mercy.

That said, there’s a far bigger problem here. It’s apparently a systemic problem, as demonstrated by the numerous live-action remakes over at Disney: They took a fanciful story and they brought it down to our level.

Granted, this is a lesser case than some other Disney examples I could mention. After all, Toothless is half the beating heart of this franchise, and he looks every bit as fabulous as he did before. In fact, the CGI design and animation on all the dragons are no less fanciful or expressive in the transition to a “live-action” setting, and that is deeply appreciated.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film around them doesn’t fare nearly so well. All the sets and props and costumes look like… well, to be blunt, they look like a theme park. Everything looks like cosplay and fan-made cinema. Part of that is likely due to the production design, falling into the depressingly common trap of making everything look custom-made and off-the-shelf instead of a lived-in world. Of course, I’m sure it didn’t help that Roger Deakins was unavailable to shoot the movie, and so Bill Pope stepped in for Director of Photography. Nothing against Bill Pope, he’s a master DoP, but he’s hardly a grandmaster on the level of Deakins.

Hell, I could tell from the opening sequence that something was wrong. Watching Hiccup running around while the village burst into flames around him, it’s perfectly obvious that the sequence was designed for a protagonist who could squash and stretch like animated characters do. Without that… I dunno, something about it simply doesn’t connect in this weird uncanny little way.

That’s pretty much what it comes down to for me. How to Train Your Dragon (2025) delivers a smoother narrative with more satisfying character arcs, but with less personality and visual flair. Sure, the film is still gorgeous and exciting enough that I wish I had sprung for the 3D and/or IMAX premiums, but it’s simply not as distinctive or… well, animated as what we got in the original film.

I could go back on forth on which is the better movie, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s beside the point. Whichever take anyone thinks is the better film, the fact remains that How to Train Your Dragon — either one — is a damn good movie. More to the point, we finally have a live-action remake that stands equal to and apart from the animated original.

After fifteen years and billions of dollars spent, Disney failed to accomplish what Dreamworks finally delivered. If nothing else, that is an accomplishment worthy of recognition and respect. If Dreamworks decides to follow this up by remaking the sequels, I will happily attend. If they push their luck with live-action remakes of Shrek or Megamind, they can fuck off. And if Universal is ever so foolish as to release a live-action remake of Despicable Me or Minions, you will know the gods have abandoned us.