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‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Review: DreamWorks Swoops Into the Remake Game With Respectful Cover From Co-Director of 2010 Toon
The leap from computer animation to 'live action' is safer than the trial-and-error update strategy Disney’s been trying with its hand-drawn classics.
Witnessing their interaction feels like falling in love all over again, as DeBlois relies once again on a near-mystic mix of nuanced character animation and encouragement from John Powell’s score (which conveys the dragon’s share of their cross-species affinity) to suggest that these pixels are every bit as alive as the human actor reaching out to touch them. Compared with the other dragons in the original, which character designer Nico Marlet imagined with comically lopsided proportions — bulgy eyes, oversize heads, ungainly fangs — Toothless was an elegant mix of feline and canine traits, mapped onto a sleek black reptilian body. The human cast do an uncanny job of mimicking their cartoon counterparts, especially Nick Frost as dragon training master Gobber and Bronwyn James and Harry Trevaldwyn as twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut, the three of whom manage to milk fresh laughs from 15-year-old jokes.
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