That's Where Your Wings Are: "How to Train Your Dragon" has become a movie
How to Train Your Dragon is a trial project for DreamWorks. The studio's other franchises, including Shrek, Madagascar, Trolls and The Croods Family, may also receive film adaptations if Dragon is successful. The first results of the film show that viewers like it unconditionally: it has 99% positive ratings on The Rotten Tomatoes aggregator. There are no figures for the first weekend of distribution yet, but the film is predicted to collect up to 200 million worldwide in these few days. Disney's "Snow White" has collected so much only for the entire rental period. The Dragon will be released in Russian cinemas by mid-June, but a dubbed copy is already online. Izvestia appreciated the work of Dreamworks.
Remake of "How to Train your Dragon"
Cinemas are covered by a wave of dragon flames — a "live" remake of "How to Train your Dragon" by DreamWorks studio has been released. An almost exact copy of the popular 2010 cartoon on the occasion of its 15th anniversary, although there are some innovations. Let's talk about the most obvious differences, even if not all of them are positive.
If you've seen the original cartoon, get ready for a familiar plot: the new film repeats its script literally frame by frame. The action takes place again on Berk Island, where the Viking tribe is fighting not just a war with fire-breathing lizards, but an endless sacred battle for survival. Their villages are like illustrations from an ancient saga with their rocky huts and runes on the stones. Vikings have to rebuild everything anew after each dragon raid: lizard flames burn roofs, claws tear wooden walls. The most terrifying of the enemies is the Night Fury. His appearance is shrouded in mystery: no one has seen him in his entirety, and those who dared to challenge him did not return home, leaving only charred footprints on the rocks and legends about the "fiery serpent devouring the sun."
The real surprise of the film is not the plot, but the cast, where each character seems to have come out of a cartoon, with the same voice, but just became flesh. Do you remember Gerard Butler, whose voice in the original belonged to Chief Stoick? Now he's playing a live version of him: bearded, with a menacing look, but with a kind heart that bursts at the seams when he sees his son communicating with a dragon. But the role of Mason Thames, the 17-year-old performer of Hiccup, causes ambivalent feelings: the guy is charismatic, but not everyone will like his appearance — fashionable sneakers and a neat hairstyle. The young man looks more like a teenager from TikTok than a resident of the northern islands, although his clumsiness and sincere kindness compensate for this anachronism.
Ironically, Hiccup's words can be heard in the film, which perfectly describe this remake: "See? The village is old, but the houses are all brand new." This phrase literally embodies the concept of movie remakes.
Remake Characters
Among the new faces in the film, Peter Serafinovich stands out — the actor who brought to life a Viking nicknamed Slobbery. This is not a minor character, but the real soul of the village: his beard is always covered with bread crumbs, and a smile is frozen on his face, as if he had just eaten something delicious. Slobbery is Hiccup's mentor in the art of communicating with dragons. His favorite phrase is: "A dragon is not an enemy, but just ... a big, hot dog" — and Slobbery will prove it in practice when he himself risks making friends with a young dragon Hiccup brought to the village. Serafinovich added incredible warmth to the image: his grin and good-natured laugh make the viewer believe that even the most ferocious creatures can be tamed with kindness.
Serafinovich is known to a wide audience for his vivid roles in "John Wick 2", "A Zombie named Sean" and "Guardians of the Galaxy", but Slobbery is one of his most memorable supporting roles. In general, this British actor of Belarusian origin was one of the successful finds of the film with his accent, slightly hinting at the Viking's Slavic roots. However, there is no accent in the Russian dubbing, Slobbery speaks in the most ordinary voice.
John Powell's music, which was in the original, sounds even more epic here: trumpets and drums lift the viewer into the sky along with Hiccup and the Night Fury, and in quiet scenes guitar ripples remind of friendship, which is born in silence. Visually, the film is almost indistinguishable from the cartoon: the dragons retain their familiar shapes, the villages are wooden, and the Vikings are in leather armor. But it is precisely this "immutability" that becomes a strong point: viewers who grew up watching the cartoon will see their favorite characters in a new quality, and newcomers will immerse themselves in the classic story without unnecessary "upgrades".
Of course, it was not without a slight disappointment: some actors (yes, we are looking at you, Nico Parker, the performer of Hiccup's beloved) look too modern for the northern Vikings. Their hairstyles and makeup remind us that filming took place in 2023, not in the age of dragons. The same Nico Parker looked much more organically in the role of Sarah Miller in the first season of "One of us."
"How to Train Your Dragon" is not just a remake, but a love letter to the original. There are no attempts to rewrite the story or add "new twists": director Dean DeBlois and the screenwriters felt that the classics did not need to be changed. And it works: the film captivates from the very first minutes, makes you smile in the scenes with Slobbery and his dragon, and in the moments when Hiccup and the Night Fury hover over the island, you want to believe that friendship is really capable of overcoming all barriers.
The Stoic was right: "The strongest dragon is the one you tamed with your heart." I wonder if Dreamworks has already found an actor for the role of Shrek?
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
