How to Train Your Dragon
dir. Dean DeBlois (2025)
So faithful is this live-action remake to the original animated film, it barely warrants review. Mason Thames (Hiccup) and Nico Parker (Astrid) do bring a certain something to their roles. The setting, oddly enough, is so exotic as to look slightly unreal.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
dir. Dean DeBlois (2019)
The trilogy’s third film contains too much scored nature documentary–style dragon courtship to be truly brilliant, and likewise too much of the throwaway (thrown in for the hell of it) human variety. Fun but hardly the resounding climax that DeBlois avowed.
How to Train Your Dragon 2
dir. Dean DeBlois (2014)
Again, there are some nice touches of animation (the sheep!), yet the main storyline and subplots are rather forced in their handling of emotion and relationships. Writer-director Dean DeBlois perhaps missed a trick in not considering Cressida Cowell’s later books for adaptation.
How to Train Your Dragon
dir. Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois (2010)
Although bearing little resemblance to Cressida Cowell’s books (especially those earlier in the series), this film adaptation plays out with much the same heart. The ending is emotional without being saccharine and there are some nice touches of animation. Viva the sheep!