Another day, and another disappointing live-action remake of a beloved animated film series. How to Train Your Dragon is a disappointing carbon copy of the original 2010 DreamWorks classic, doing little to expand upon the original’s narrative while delivering a less well-executed, word-for-word remake of what came before. In the Viking-occupied isle of Berk many centuries ago, a clan led by barrel-chested Chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler) spends its time dominating and killing dragons as part of an even older feud between the beasts and humanity. However, Stoick’s soft-hearted, nerdy-looking kid Hiccup (Mason Thames) struggles with the concept. On the day of the village’s most significant coming-of-age test, where youngins must face their first dragons, he fails, much to his father’s dismay. However, he also catches one of the rarest dragons, a Night Fury, without anyone else realizing it. Instead of killing the unique catch, he takes care of it; feeding, repairing its now-missing tail-wing, and naming it Toothless all ensue in their own time. As tensions about dragons come to a head in the village, Hiccup must make a choice: continue in his father’s footsteps and slay dragons, or deny tradition and teach his clan to care for them.

There is nothing of added value that Dragon’s live-action iteration brings. Even with 27 minutes of added runtime, the film feels desperate to evoke the same reactions as the original did with no variation. The dragons certainly look cool—their scales, varying color schemes, and animated movements are cute, and they each have adorable, dog-like quirks—but everything else is either a poorer redo of what came before or an unnecessary addition. Hiccup himself is unappealing. Thames presents himself as something of a Tom Holland Peter Parker, only with unnaturally disheveled hair, none of Holland’s charisma, and a hoodie in Viking times for some reason. His friends, such as Astrid (Nico Parker), Fishlegs (Julian Dennison), and even his trainer Gobber the Belch (Nick Frost), are similarly miscast; Parker’s absurdly stringy wig takes away from her otherwise noble take, Dennison feels a bit cartoonish, and Frost’s cheery London accent is detached from the slightly more rough-and-tumble Scottish accent Craig Ferguson lavished 15 years ago. Gerard Butler is probably the best casting choice as Stoick, but even he feels out of place—like watching Gerard Butler in a Viking fit instead of Stoick the Vast dealing with family issues. Along with choked close-ups to disguise otherwise clearly cheap sets and costumes, an over-reliance on score, and such a lack of magic that everything feels like a forced reenactment of what came before, Dragon hinders itself more in the real world.

Despite the harshness above, Dragons does have a few good moments. Thames is elegant in his care towards Toothless as Hiccup, and their interactions are almost as enlightening and heart touching as Hiccup’s animated outing; as Hiccup surreptitiously unclenches his hand in a gesture of gentle affection towards Toothless, the latter’s brief noggining and enlarged pupils as he relaxed is all the heartwarming as wanted. But it unfolds in cheaper surroundings and with an actor who otherwise appears too much like an introverted model rather than a geeky Viking kid. Many jokes also fly, and the side characters themselves are effectively unique, but again, the quips are the same as in the original, and the characters are miscast. The characters are all decent, just miscast. Thus, How to Train Your Dragon may be entertaining enough for younger audiences and those who haven’t seen the animated trilogy to get behind, but it’s still another example of a long-since weathered argument of current cinematic trends: studios need to stop remaking animated classics into live action. Whether they are unchanged and bland, too different and disruptive, or anything in between, it can all be avoided by not making them altogether.

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