It may look like a trend, but the ongoing string of live-action films adapted from successful animated features is simple commercial pragmatism on the part of movie studios. If the actual quality of these remakes seems like an afterthought, the guiding principle behind them is likely the tendency for Hollywood decision-makers to prefer investing in proven properties instead of something fresh or untested. In keeping with its decades of dominance in the field of animation, Disney has been at the forefront of plundering its succession of cartoon classics to profit off live-action renderings. Meanwhile, a recent Dreamworks release has done a better job of recreating an animated success with real-life humans in key roles than the latest attempt by Disney.
‘How to Train Your Dragon’
Coincidentally or not, Dreamworks’ new version of the company’s 2010 hit How to Train Your Dragon is being released just a couple of weeks after the less-than-satisfying live-action revision of a late-period Disney toon triumph, Lilo & Stitch. An energetic, family-friendly adventure with loads of swashbuckling action and more than a few comedic moments, the 2025 How to Train Your Dragon blends actors and computer-generated creatures to retell the story of a Viking teen named Hiccup who manages to tame a purportedly fearsome dragon, as one might gather from the title.
The reserved Hiccup, brought to onscreen life by an engagingly gangly Mason Thames, is a would-be inventor and a disappointment to his father, the mighty warrior chief Stoick, played by Gerard Butler, who was also the voice of Stoick in the 2010 movie and subsequent spin-offs. As the leader of a Viking enclave that has done battle with a horde of dragons for many years, Stoick wants his son to follow in his footsteps as a slayer of the flying, fire-breathing beasts. Such an outcome is especially improbable after Hiccup befriends an injured dragon that he names Toothless and learns crucial things that may forever alter the relationship between the longtime enemies.
Rather than do anything particularly different in structure or tone, this How to Train Your Dragon hews closely to the beats of the first movie, although it goes for more expansive visual spectacle than its predecessor. It helps that the initial iteration was done using 3D-style CGI animation, not traditional 2D, making the interaction between flesh-and-blood actors and animated elements more seamless. Furthermore, Dean DeBlois, who codirected and cowrote 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon along with Chris Sanders, is the director and screenwriter of the 2025 model. He knows and honors the material, which is based on a 2003 novel by Cressida Cowell, and he clearly cares about the characters, their world, and the message of tolerance and respect at the heart of the tale.
The well-chosen supporting players include Nico Parker (HBO’s The Last of Us) as Astrid, the most accomplished teenage Viking warrior-in-training until Hiccup starts coming into his own, and British comedy mainstay Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and others) as the somewhat goofy master of arms Gobber who serves as Hiccup’s mentor. Their expressive faces and bearing offer richer emotional depth than their animated counterparts. If you like jubilant, uplifting fantasy and are unfamiliar with the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, you will definitely enjoy this. If you have seen the original, you may rightly assume that this is more intellectual property exploitation by the suits. At least, it’s done well.
How to Train Your Dragon is in theaters.
‘Lilo & Stitch’
Further encouraging a tandem assessment, Disney’s 2002 animated smash Lilo & Stitch was cowritten and codirected by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois — the same team behind 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon. Despite the positives that DeBlois brought to the current edition of How to Train Your Dragon, neither he nor Sanders had anything specific to do with writing or directing this year’s live-action Lilo & Stitch, which, to be fair, has done very well at the box office.
In its delightful, 2D-animated 2002 incarnation, Lilo & Stitch was about a balky, alienated Hawaiian kid who mistakes an impish pint-sized loose-cannon alien for a stray dog, decides to make him her pet, and names him “Stitch,” unaware that he’s a potentially dangerous fugitive from an intergalactic empire and is being pursued by bounty hunters. The little girl, Lilo, lives with her older sister in the aftermath of their parents dying, and social services is concerned about Lilo’s well-being. Meanwhile, government agents led by a burly fellow named Cobra Bubbles are investigating the extraterrestrial incursion. So Lilo and Stitch are being pursued on three fronts.
The first time around, it was a blast — fun, funny, and warm-hearted. Alas, Disney’s live-action/CGI animation take on Lilo & Stitch is like most of the studio’s other exercises in turning landmark cartoons such as Snow White and Dumbo into live-action blockbusters. It adds nothing special to the superior original. As is the case with How to Train Your Dragon, the refurbished Lilo & Stitch parallels its source, making a few changes, additions and subtractions that befit the live component and the changing times. But as good as today’s tech is at making the computer-animated Stitch fit into the modern Hawaiian setting and realistically interact with the cast and environment, an all-animated outer-space sequence that sets up Stitch’s back-story is so cartoony that the scenes in Hawaii seem like a totally different movie.
The casting is solid, with Maia Kealoha’s Lilo coming in cute and plausible although occasionally screechy and Sydney Agudong doing a fine job as Lilo’s scattered, but caring sister Nani. As for the rest of the performers, Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnusson are hit and miss as the slapstick aliens sent to recover Stitch. Courtney B. Vance is kind of barely there as Agent Cobra Bubbles who was much more of a presence in his earlier animated form. It’s sort of sweet that Tia Carrere, the voice of Nani in the proto-Lilo & Stitch, is on board as the social worker assigned to assess Lilo’s well-being. Children who have never seen the 2002 Lilo & Stitch — which, by the way, holds up beautifully — could enjoy this, and it’s hard to deride its subtext about the importance of family and community. Ultimately, as with so many of the other Disney recalibrations and reimaginings, the revived Lilo & Stitch is more about economics than it is about art.
Lilo & Stitch is in theaters.
