Movie Review - How To Train Your Dragon (2025)
- Claudia B. Liedtke
- Jul 19
- 9 min read
Contents:
Introduction
A Second Opinion (A Review Interview With My Sister, Ruby)
Introduction
I watched the new How To Train Your Dragon movie three days after it released in theaters. The theater was half empty, but the people behind me still happened to bump into my seat a few too many times.
I don’t know when I watched the first How To Train Your Dragon movie. I may have been nine or ten but the numbers are getting fuzzy in my old age.
It wasn’t instant transfixation, it took a few more years of maturing before I was able to really appreciate the movie and all its dramatics.
And, because of how much I appreciated the creation of those phenomenal first adaptations, I was wary to watch the new movie. What if it made it worse? What it twisted the characters (see here) or made the dragons look downright ugly (I touch on this topic a little here).
I still watched it. And no, it didn’t change my opinion of the other cartoons, but it did not live up to my expectations. Here is the full extent of my thoughts on How To Train Your Dragon (2025).
(Warning: minimal spoilers within)
Overall Like/Dislike
I didn’t hate the movie, not by many accounts. I do have to say, though, that it didn’t fill in all the blanks. Not that I was left wondering what happened or who was who, it just didn’t give me the same feeling as the older cartoons did.
Yes, I did expect it to be different and I wasn’t disappointed, in a few words, but I was expecting it to be…different.
Theme
I talk about theme a little with my sister in our interview below (click this link) and she says it really well: ‘if [the theme is] not the same, it’d be a pretty bad movie.’ I have to agree. Thankfully, the producers knew this and they kept the theme steady, just like the cartoon.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve read enough comments on Disney’s Snow White to know that Disney completely destroyed the original theme when recreating it. In How To Train Your Dragon’s case, the directors and producers held steady to the ‘friendship’ and ‘sacrifice’ themes that the original trilogy had.
Character
This is one point I could go on for ages. There are…five people I really want to talk about. And, you guessed it, they are the five teens who train in the arena with Hiccup (Ruffnut and Tuffnut, Snotlout, Astrid, and Fishlegs).
~Ruffnut And Tuffnut~
I didn’t put a comma between Ruffnut and Tuffnut for one very specific reason and…that is without them, nothing would have changed–essentially, the story would have been exactly the same. In the most ungentle terms, they were filler characters.
In the cartoon, they have some agency (they help Hiccup defeat the Red Death (the big bad dragon in the end) and they motivate Astrid to go find Hiccup–which leads to her figuring out what he’s doing with Toothless).
In the live action, they are completely different. Ruffnut is all girls-for-girls feminist and makes these weird comments. Tuffnut is not nearly as funny. He flails around less and talks less. He’s also not as much of an idiot.
~Snotlout~
Okay, this guy is not nearly as different as Ruff and Tuff are, but where he was a super jerk and bully in the cartoon, he was rather…sympathetic in the live-action. He has an odd relationship with his dad, which was never shown in the cartoon and that threw us all off balance. He was never really a villain in the cartoon, but we felt allowed to not like him. Now we feel bad for it. And that leaves us wanting someone to hate for nearly the entire duration of the movie, until the climax when we have the Red Death to hate.
~Astrid~
While Astrid stayed pretty consistent through the cartoon and the motion picture, I didn’t feel her character arc nearly as clear as I did in the cartoon. If we had spent a little less time disliking her in the arena, then maybe the change would have been smoother.
~Fishlegs~
This guy is much less a problem than the others, but he was a little questionable. In the cartoon he had a very sturdy character voice whereas when he spoke and was even on screen at all in the motion picture he was much more faded into the background. It was a lot easier to imagine he wasn’t there at all, which is just sad because he is such a strong character in the original.
Casting
It is my personal opinion that casting is the most important thing when it comes to a motion picture. And Universal Studios nearly butchered this How To Train Your Dragon (2025) casting.
Hiccup…wasn’t all that bad–which, considering what I’m about to say, is super important. But there are two female characters that really ticked me off.
The first is Astrid. And no, I don’t have anything against characters of different race. What I am struggling with is that in the original movies, Astrid is a super blonde, tall, blue-eyed, white girl and the change felt a little drastic.
Second, Ruffnut. In the original she is this tiny white girl with super long blonde hair and a rough sense of humor. Here in the new motion picture, she was cast as a plus-size ginger.
What?
It appears that Universal Studios both loved and hated the original movie, and I don’t understand why they had to do that.
Here's a list of the important characters:
Hiccup - Mason Thames
Astrid - Nico Parker
Stoick - Gerard Butler
Gobber - Nick Frost
Fishlegs - Julian Dennison
Ruffnut - Bronwyn James
Tuffnut - Harry Trevaldyn
Snotlout - Gabriel Howwel
Plot + Structure
Thankfully, Universal Studios liked How To Train Your Dragon enough that they didn’t change the plot in any major way. What they did do (and this makes me really angry) is they cut out three important scenes (which you can read more about down here). One of the scenes comes after Test Drive when Hiccup is sitting on a barren island with Toothless and here comes a Terrible Terror to eat Toothless’ fish, and Toothless sends a tiny fireball into the Terrible Terror’s mouth. Here, Hiccup makes the comment ‘Not so fireproof on the inside, are ya?’ which is essential to the plot. The structure is now weaker by far. Without said scene, Hiccup would have never had any idea how to vanquish the Red Death at the end of the movie.
Also, because so many of the characters were different, the structure fell right through the roof. Especially because of Astrid's change.
Cinematography
~Acting~
Call me nitpicky, but there were a few places where the acting became a little B-graded. This happened especially when Ruffnut or Tuffnut spoke. Changing their characters messed up so much that even the actors had no idea what to do. I would rate this Acting overall a 3.5-stars. Ruby mentions this in our interview too. She says that sometimes the actors would say something that obviously a Viking would never say (ie. Astrid talks to Hiccup once–I can’t remember when–and she says something like ‘I won’t go snitching on you’. And I had to pause for a moment. I’m sorry. Snitching?).
~CGI~
I’m mostly going to talk about dragons down here.
They weren’t nearly as cute as they could have been. Toothless may be one exception, but even him. I told Ruby while we were talking before I recorded our interview that if you took a photo of a dragon and stared at it for a long time, they weren’t cute anymore. All of their eyes are way too tiny. Besides that, they did move nicely and they seemed to have the same kind of characters as they did in the original.
~Other~
Berk.
I didn’t realize how important it was for me to see the same Berk here as in the cartoon. The village and all was alright, and so was the forest, but the geography was all wrong. The island wasn’t the right shape, the forest wasn’t on the correct side. It hurt my head to try and reflect it to the cartoon Berk.
A Note On Missing Scenes
I mentioned above that there were three scenes missing in the motion picture adaptation. Here they are, and why they should have stayed in the movie:
This is the scene from above that happens after Test Drive when Hiccup and Toothless are sitting, eating fish on a random barren island and a small Terrible Terror comes up and tries to eat Toothless’ fish, but Toothless instead shoots a fireball into the small creature’s mouth and Hiccup makes the observation ‘Not so fireproof on the inside…’. This observation is essential when it comes to killing the Red Death.
The second scene is one that happens just before Hiccup takes Astrid on a ride on Toothless. He and Toothless are sneaking through Berk to get to Gobber’s forge so he can detach some metal wires that have kept Hiccup and Toothless attached to each other after they crashed while flying. While walking, they encounter Astrid and she nearly sees Hiccup smuggling Toothless through town. This scene is important because of how much it adds to Astrid’s character. We get to see her and Hiccup together, alone, when they rarely are in the rest of the movie because Toothless is present. Here, Hiccup has to act all inconspicuous while not making a complete fool of himself in front of the girl he likes. It adds some good tension and makes their relationship feel a little more real.
This one is less of a scene than a small addition to a scene that gives us an insight to what Hiccup assumes Stoik thinks of him as a son. This scene comes right after Hiccup shoots down Toothless and Gobber is escorting him back to his house. Hiccup does an impression of his father, Stoik the Vast, and says something along the lines of ‘I wanted a real viking boy with beefy arms and extra glory on the side. This…this here is a talking fishbone.’ And I can’t remember it exactly, but it was said with just enough sorrow to make us realize that’s exactly what Stoik thinks he wants.
Comparing The 2025 and 2010 How To Train Your Dragon Movies To The Original Book Series By Cressida Cowell
If I’m being really honest, there’s nothing to compare. In the book, everyone keeps dragons as pets and when Hiccup catches this tiny dragon who he then names Toothless, he has to go through all this trouble to fight a big dragon while only having a tiny thing on his side. And as different as the two movies are from each other, they really aren’t that bad. In the book the main character is still named Hiccup, his father is still Stoik, and his dragon is still Toothless. Snotlout is still the bully and Fishlegs the odd little sidekick. But there is no Astrid or Red Death or Ruff and Tuff. It still baffles me to this day as to why Cressida would let them do that to her series.
But, really, I’m kind of glad they did. The movies and tv series are infinitely better than the books and they are really the story that speaks directly to the hearts of so many teens.
A Second Opinion (A Review Interview With My Sister, Ruby)
Did you like it?
Yes.
Did any of the characters seem like they were different people to you?
Uh, yeah. Like Fishlegs, the twins, Snotlout. Basically, Astrid and Hiccup were the same.
Any pet peeves?
The language was a little different.
How?
It was more modern.
And the characters weren’t the same.
How was it compared to the original?
Theme, basically the same. (if it’s not the same, it’d be a really bad movie.)
Character, again with the not the same minor characters.
Cinematography: Okay, the dragons weren’t as bad as I thought. If that was the one thing they were focusing on, maybe?
Casting: Didn’t love it. Astrid, one of the twins, fishlegs. Snotlout. Everybody else was basically the same. But Stoic had the exact same actor as voice actor, so that made me happy.
Would you rewatch it?
Yeah.
Why?
Because it was good, it was funny, it was basically the same unless you go into great detail about the people. It was good, I guess.
Me?
100%. It doesn’t add a whole bunch to the universe, but it;s not really meant to, it’s kinda just meant to tack on.
Yeah, if you added dragon history then it would have been cooler, but then it wouldn’t have been the same as the first one so there’s that.
Overall Rating?
4.7-stars
Original Rating?
5-stars
What was one thing you really really liked about it?
I don’t know, most of it was the same. It was a good movie.
End Rating
After all that nitpicking and squabbling over casting and cinematography, it still was a good movie with good themes that still speak to the same people as the original.
I would rate this movie a solid 3.8-stars.
Universal Studios could have done so much better, but they also could have done a lot worse.
AND they kept the soundtrack, though they missed the last note at the very end of the movie.
Where To Watch
You can rent it on various streaming platforms like YouTube, Cineplex Store, and Amazon. It is also still streaming in some theaters.
Conclusion
Where some Motion Pictures are super stupid and make no sense compared to the original, How To Train Your Dragon (2025) didn’t do too awful a job. It was produced well, the soundtrack was very similar, and nearly all of the plot points were hit. It was directed by the same person who directed the original series, Dean DeBlois, and has a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (see here).
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the movie!!!
The End
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