How To Train Your Dragon (2025) –  Hiccup is a young Viking who is yet to kill his first dragon. Just one of his sniffed at contraptions ensnares rare ‘Night Fury’ dragon. Yet his device has grounded the dragon, and it’s injury leads Hiccup to instead befriend it. But such a friendship is fraught with danger, with Hiccup’s father waging a war against all dragons. Are they really all just mindless vicious pests, or is something much larger at play?

How To Train Your Dragon (2025) – Director: Dean DeBlois

Rating: PG

Running Length: 125 minutes

Starring: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, Nick Frost 

Genres: Action / Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

REVIEW: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025)

The obvious first question is ‘why’? Why make a live action How To Train Your Dragon when there are three animated films, this first of which is less than  20 years old? Why, when the main character will still need to be animated anyway? Leaving that aside (‘constant use profitable licensing’ being the most likely answer), the 2025 live action How To Train Your Dragon brings back to our screens that tale of Hiccup and Toothless; inept dragon hunter and most feared dragon, respectively.

Regardless of the medium, How To Train Your Dragon has a superbly engaging story. The entire village of Berk is geared around either hunting or fending off dragons, including the bullish Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his role). Unfortunately Stoick’s son, Hiccup (Mason Thames) is a thinker more than a do-er. His contraptions frequently backfire, but when one catches a Night Fury dragon (the most feared kind) and cripples it, Hiccup learns that a monster seen up close is not quite so monstrous.

Butler, buried under layers of helmet and hair, shines out as a proud knucklehead dad who can’t bridge the generation gap with his oddball son. The surrounding cast, in fairness to them, have little depth to work with and so despite a push / pull attraction between Hiccup and Astrid (Nico Parker), the real meat of the story is one rooted in family, fear, and disability. As Mason’s Hiccup is more grounded in reality (the original was all flailing limbs) some of the comic punch is lost. Live action flights of fancy cannot compare to untethered nature of their animated forebears, and so it is only in the charged scenes between Hiccup and his furrow browed father than a different flavour of emotional depth can work its way out of the screen, which both actors rise to the challenge of.

As a beat for beat remake all the same good jokes land just as effectively (the training sequences are still great) and the story is well paced. Newcomers will enjoy this version of How To Train Your Dragon immensely. For many others, though, this is the same old bucket of fish but regurgitated with just the fish heads.

CONTENT: IS ‘HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025)’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

The opening narration refers to “popping a dragon’s head clean off its shoulders”.

In the opening scenes the various different types of dragon are described. One is a large flamed covered one and is called the ‘Monstrous Beast’. These are large, loud, and scary, although there are only shown quickly and general fighting around the village is more comical than fearful.

A dragon sneaks up behind Hiccup. There is close up of it about to pounce before another character interjects. Exciting music is playing.

A fortune teller uses tossed animal bones to make predictions.

Many villagers have missing limbs and use prosthetics. This is dealt with in a very matter of fact manner and doesn’t impact ton their ability to be part of the community.  One character sarcastically wonders if they should attach their ‘bucket hand’ or their ‘swimming hand’.

One Toothless (the night fury) dragon is freed from the net he is entangled in, he leaps at Hiccup and roars loudly at him in a close up shot. This is a few seconds.

During dragon training in the arena. Hiccup is knocked onto his back. A dragon has him in its sights and prepares to fire a (potentially lethal) fireball into his prone body before the moment is ended.

The adults of the village explore by boat trying to find the dragons’ nest. This is a quiet and tense scene with low visibility due to fog. A fiery attack hits them quickly.

During another training session one dragon’s attack method is to fill the arena with smoke. This makes for characters tip toeing nervously as they get picked off (non – lethally) one by one.

Stoick (Hiccup’s father) is very pleased at Hiccup’s apparently excellent work in the training arena. He speaks as a proud dad about him but graphically describing past victories like “the pleasure of spilling guts or mounting a head”.

Hiccup, Toothless, and Astrid inadvertently follow a calamity of dragons which lead them to within a large mountain. It is smoky and scary. A humongous dragon lunges from a pit and eats one of the chubby ‘dog like’ dragons that have been shown to be pretty harmless.

The village amass to see Hiccup finish off the regime but Hiccup is determined to change the minds of the village about the nature of dragons. He tries to calm a large, scary Monstrous Beast. The tense moment changes when it spits our fire and Hiccup has to flee. A friend comes to his aid and the fight involves lots of screeching and noise.

After the fight above Stoick is furious with Hiccup. He angrily walks away from him and says the he is “not my son.” Hiccup is devastated by this.

An attack on the huge dragon mountain leads to the huge dragon bursting free. It burns the ships. One start to sink with a character strapped tight, who therefore sinks under the surface. The character fights for breath and struggles against their bonds.

A character is knocked into an exploding fireball. In the aftermath people search for them. All are distraught. One whimpers that they are ‘so sorry’.

A character recovers in bed, however due to preceding events they have lost a leg. They are stunned but compose themselves and accept their condition. A prosthetic leg is built and there is a couple of scenes of them getting used to it and learning to walk again.

CAN I SEE A CLIP?

VERDICT: IS ‘HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025)’ FOR KIDS?

A fun and exciting family film, ‘The Croods’ takes usual tropes and makes it all seem new. As several scenes are quite intense, younger viewers may find this movie quite scary, however all ages should be able to watch it, even if some reassurance is needed.

• Violence: 1/5 (Despite the Viking setting, there is very little violence beyond comical whacks)
• Emotional Distress: 2/5 (Hiccup is devastated at his father’s disappointment, concern for a character strapped to a sinking boat)
• Fear Factor: 3/5 (Although the dragons are all introduced comically they are big, noisy, and potentially scary for small children. The large dragon in the final act contains lots of loud and roaring moments. A few jump scares)
• Sexual Content: 0/5
• Bad Language: 0/5
• Dialogue: 1/5 (arguing with family)
• Other Notes: deals with themes of family expectations, disability and loss of limbs, learning about what scares you, listening to loved ones, and that friendship is based on respect.

Words by Mike Record