Avis des critiques

Really, that’s all this is: very expensive cosplay. It’s fans and a few creators of an original putting on the costumes, saying the lines, and going through the motions again. No one ever stops to ask why.

The question is not How to Train Your Dragon; the question is “why.” Dean DeBlois, who co-directed the original animated classic in 2010, is back to bring his world into (mostly) live-action, and it’s nearly a beat-for-beat retread of the old material. This remake addresses a few minor complaints but leaves everything else intact. That it effectively tells the story once again is besides the point. The question is why anyone bothered.

The younger audiences will no doubt be dazzled by the new How to Train Your Dragon, with its simple and appealing “ET but with Vikings” tale, which now features flesh-and-blood actors, some real landscapes and crashing blue waves (emphasis on “some”) and a still rascally and adorable Toothless – the name given to its central flying reptile. Meanwhile, the slightly older kids will probably find this retread functional and satisfying enough... while being able to clock the diminishing returns.

It’s the Gus Van Sant’s Psycho of animation remakes. It is frequently soaring and gorgeous, but can’t take full credit for its beautiful moments because we’ve quite literally seen it before.

Fans of the franchise will appreciate how loyal the live-action remake remains to the original one, but it may also easily feel like you have seen this exact movie before.

How to Train Your Dragon isn’t some interpolation of the 2010 animated film, as it’s more or less a carbon copy, with the filmmakers having recreated 99% of the original in live action. And as Gus Van Sant proved pretty decisively back in 1998 with his remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, the only value in such an exercise is the degree to which you’re curious, if at all, about its fundamental reason for being.

Despite all the actor’s prowess and Pope’s wonderful camerawork, you can’t discount how similar this live-action incarnation is to its predecessor. There are moments where you. wish DeBois had pushed the pedal creatively.

Mostly, what DeBlois and his team have done is capture the tone and whimsy of the 2010 animated hit, and pushed it gently into a live-action world that feels just as (if, oddly enough, not more so) plucked out of some family-friendly fairy tale... No one needs a live-action remake, but ones this faithful and sweet are not the problem.

While the marketing materials have packed a punch, thanks to composer John Powell returning to provide the triumphant score, not much about the movie has looked like anything more than a shot-for-shot remake with little to no indication of any significant changes or improvements made on the original. Granted, there's not much to improve upon, since that original movie is still a wonderful animated adventure.