Everyone who complained about Astrid should be ashamed of themselves.

I'm genuinely surprised and so so happy with this movie. the casting is great, the chemistry is so cute. astrid is such an icon, and hiccup and his dad's relationship is everything. there's heart and soul in this movie. and oh! there's also dragons!

Just like the Disney live action remakes, this is an utterly pointless movie. It shouldn't exist. At least it's faithful, but that doesn't justify it existing. There's literally no reason whatsoever for anyone to choose to watch this version over the animated one. It's lesser in every possible way. It's a copy, and like all copies, it lacks a soul.

A great story can always be a great film, but not everyone can do it. I'm surprised at how good they mastered the transition from animation to real life actors. I was a bit skeptic for the first 10/15 minutes, but then the connection between Hiccup and Toothless came about and it was like seeing the original for the first time. All characters were really well cast and quite close to the personalities and traits of the original. A great movie!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness, but when you start selling it? We call it a lazy cash grab. This looks like it was filmed in two days tops, and would be more appropriately titled _How to Sabotage Your Franchise_. Despite mimicking the lines and donning the attire of their animated counterparts, the foreground characters come off awkward and unlikable. Toothless, who once oozed charm without uttering a word, feels like a prop. The only one doing justice to their character is, as one might expect, Gerard Butler. Everyone else looks bored to be there. As I was watching this, I started pondering what the animated version did so wrong that a remake was called for, until I caught Stoick deviating from the original script and playing up the faraway regions of Blabla and Whogivesafuck that some of his "diverse" fellow villagers came from. Then it dawned on me—the animated version isn't woke enough. God forbid an isolated community of vikings be made up entirely of white people (Iceland must be a truly offensive place). It makes one appreciate just how lucky we are that the originals came out before that movement reared its ugly head. Checkbox film-making at its finest.