“Stop trying to be something you’re not.”

Falling into the latest trend of forcing animated films into so-called live-action updates (where most of the image is computer generated regardless), How to Train Your Dragon is at the very least entertaining although totally unnecessary. It’s longer but nothing of real value is added, and the cartoonish look to the characters and their home doesn’t really help justify remaking this one outside of the animated realm. We didn’t need this movie, but thankfully it’s a timeless message still worth listening to again.

We know that Hiccup (Mason Thames) is a scrawny Viking boy who struggles surviving the goliath shadow of his father Stoic the Vast (Gerard Butler), chieftain of the Isle of Berk. We know the village is constantly ransacked by thieving dragons – the archnemeses of the villagers – for the cattle and livestock they call their livelihood. We know Hiccup befriends a Night Fury dragon named Toothless, that he builds an appendage for the animal he injured, and that cheats his way throughout a Viking 101 preparatory dragon fighting class with the help of his newly winged buddy. You might even remember Astrid’s (Nico Parker) suspicion of Hiccup’s fraudulent success. The two young actors feel authentic in the roles, but there’s too little being contributed that we haven’t already seen.

Everything feels bigger this time around Berk’s block, especially when it comes to the ending, because when animated films get the live-action treatment more also seems to be the M.O. It’s understandable though; when your franchise has so much worldwide popularity that it spawns its own section in the new Universal Epic Universe park, you’re pretty much guaranteed people will flock to the theaters regardless of the integrity or the quality of the film itself. It’s reliable, easy, doesn’t require an ounce of original thought or processing. The visuals are a feast and the calories are empty.

It’s a copy-paste job that’s been stretched out wider and passed through a few filters to get just the right look. And while it’s technically well made, I just can’t get over the fact that millions of dollars were poured into a project to do exactly what’s already been done before instead of taking a risk on something worth really sinking your teeth into. How to Train Your Dragon is about as safe as movies get, relying on audiences to venture towards what they already know instead of tempting them to explore a vast new world, only further exacerbating the plagiaristic artistic expressions that are these recent live-on knockoffs. I pray they end sooner than later.

“We have…dragons.”

Rating: 2.5 out of 5