How to Train Your Dragon

However, ultimately, How to Train Your Dragon is a trip down a familiar memory lane. And at a time when few can resist cashing in on a franchise, a conceit that does not belong in that innocent world that Hiccup and Toothless helped create.

The live-action How to Train Your Dragon can feel hemmed in by its faithfulness to the animated original, but it's re-creating that film's sense of heart and soul as well as its entire plot and most enduring images.

This remake has largely decided not to improve it, playing out a near-identical script with live human actors and calling it a day. It is frequently soaring and gorgeous, but can't take full credit for its beautiful moments because we've quite literally seen it before. This one just tries to do the same thing again, and while it does it well, that's all it does.

The new version of "How to Train Your Dragon" doesn't do a single thing better than the original.

DreamWorks tries to find success with the Disney live-action remake template but falls short. The green screen aesthetics, rendering surrounding environments (not to mention still computer-generated dragons), are less convincing and simply pale in comparison to the glorious images that made the original How To Train Your Dragon stand apart.

While certain details in specific scenes were modified and some dialogue subtly shifted to enhance the story, the new version follows the original plot's three-act structure to a tee. Thames does a great job balancing the tone set by Baruchel with Hiccup's dry humor and making the lines his own, infusing them with earnestness and urgency. Ultimately, this first installment has laid the foundation for the theme of nature vs. nurture and answering the age old question of whether man and creature can get along.