How to Train Your Dragon 4K 2025 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Teenager Ikking is not too close to the traditions of his heroic tribe, which has been waging war with dragons for many years. The boy unexpectedly befriends the dragon Toothless, who helps him and the other Vikings to see the world from a completely different perspective.

Review 4K Movie

I have an extremely complicated relationship with remakes. I haven't seen a single one yet that I thought was better than or even similar in content and emotion to the original cartoon. There are cases when a remake has some fresh and interesting moments that could have been in the original story, but there are also many more negative aspects that make the remake look less favorable. However, as practice shows, these films are extremely profitable, which motivates their creators to continue producing them. ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ is one of Dreamworks' cult projects, and this remake is their first attempt to enter this market. Did they succeed, or would they be better off continuing their work on new animation?

Plot. In the brutal world of the Vikings, where dragons are deadly threats, the young Hiccup, heir to the chieftain, is different from his fellow islanders on the island of Berk. Unlike the others, he prefers cunning and wit to brute force. But everything changes when he meets a mysterious dragon named Toothless. Suddenly, Hiccup realizes that dragons are not the monsters they are believed to be. Now he must make a choice: follow the centuries-old traditions of his tribe or trust a new friendship that could turn their world upside down.

It should be mentioned that this story has a source. And it's not the 2010 cartoon, but a series of books by British author Cressida Cowell. The perspective shown in the animation is not a verbatim quote, but the screenwriters' interpretation of the book's plot. Nevertheless, unlike Mouse House, DreamWorks opted for a strategy of minimal action in this remake: they did not fantasize and practically shot the cartoon frame by frame, and it was done by Dean DeBlois himself, the director of the original project. On the one hand, this is a winning tactic, because any additions look foreign in one way or another. In addition, this is the interpretation of the director himself, who also served as the screenwriter in 2010, so it would be extremely strange to demand an alternative view of this story from him. On the other hand, the studio still had a source that could have been used to present the story in a slightly different way, which would have given the remake a more justified meaning for its release. As it stands, all the positive aspects of the story are thanks to the cartoon, not this remake.

Authenticity. Why didn't I see a single white-haired person among all the Scandinavians? Why are the most legendary Viking warriors in Stoick the Vast's clan women of different races? And how justified is the fact that absolutely anyone, regardless of gender, race, origin, etc., could become a Viking (specifically a warrior-seafarer, not a worker or a slave)? These are more questions for my own personal knowledge, but still.

Visual effects. Despite the fact that less was spent on the remake than on the cartoon (even without taking inflation into account), the graphics in the film look coherent. The action scenes look dynamic and natural, the dragon models are not off-putting, and Toothless has retained some of his charisma from the cartoon. And even though some of the backgrounds seemed a bit soapy to me, the film was enjoyable to watch, so respect.

Cast and acting. Among the entire cast, I would like to highlight Gerard Butler and Nick Frost in the roles of Stoick and Grump, respectively. The actors fit the characters' psychotypes well, which is why they looked so natural on screen. They have brutality, charisma, dramatic moments, and the humor characteristic of the characters. However, the key participants in the project are a strong miscast, the culmination of which is Astrid. Instead of a blonde girl with a Scandinavian braid, we have (sorry) a chick with Zimbabwean roots, African braids, pumped-up lips, and chiselled cheekbones. This is wrong both visually and in terms of content. Astrid combined strength and confidence with sensitivity and femininity, which, unfortunately, Nico Parker failed to achieve. The twins (Bronwyn James and Harry Trewalden) became faceless and boring, Smurka (Gabriel Howell) turned into Flash Thompson from Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Ikkink (Mason Thames) lost his dynamic emotional range, making him not so charming anymore. And yeah, the problem here is that the Far From Home, and Ikkings (Mason Thames) lost his dynamic emotional range, making him less charming. And yes, the problem here only arises because I know from the cartoon how it could have looked. Probably, for a new viewer, everything will seem natural, but for me, it wasn't enough.