Month: June 2025

How to Train Your Dragon is nothing new

Right out of the gate, let it be known that How to Train Your Dragon is one of my favorite animated features of all time. The entire trilogy is excellent. Definitely high on the annual watch list. It may be a perfect movie. And when I saw they were doing a live-action remake of HtTYD, I was gonna see it.  No question about it.

And don’t even get me started on Snow White

It should also be known that The Average Dude has, in fact, only ever seen one live action remake. Aladin starred possibly the only actor (at the time) that could come close to touching the excellence of Robin Williams in the role of Genie. Genie is iconic, and now I know the performance is never going to be equalled, even by an actor with as much talent and charisma as Will Smith (again, at the time). I was, to my surprise, sumarily unimpressed.

When Lion King came out with a LAR (live action remake), I passed. Beauty and the Beast, pass. Jungle Book, pass. I could have maybe gone to see The Little Mermaid. But the whole race-swap thing left me cold. So again, hard pass.

But How to Train Your Dragon? The visuals alone were enough to get me psyched. So yeah, Average Dude was IN.

LARs are a bad idea. Here’s why.

I think this review is going to be pretty short. Anyone who has seen the animated original already knows the story. You already know you love it. Nothing I could say here is going to spoil anything. And anyone who HASN’T seen the original – released 15 years ago – you had time to avoid spoilers. Because here’s the thing…How to Train Your Dragon is nearly scene for scene, line for line, a remake of the animated classic. Literally, the only conceivable attraction of this movie is seeing a real Hiccup, a real Stoick the Vast. And of course…a real Toothless. Or so you would think.

The reality didn’t live up to the fantasy

And this is my biggest takeaway from How to Train Your Dragon…Toothless is like your family dog. Your dog has emotions. Your pooch has personality. They all have subtle facial expresions and mannerisms that you can interpret. And those expresions were masterfully captured in the animated movie. Not so much in the live action feature. I didn’t see that coming and, to be honest, I am surprised at how hard it hit me. It absolutely turned what I thought would be an enhancement of a beloved animated tale and just made it…meh. Not bad, per se. Just not what I expected.

And in movies, we are trained to have expectations. Literally, that’s what trailers are for.

apparently, it’s still bringing in the bucks

I might be forgiven for not knowing that a verbatim LAR of a well-loved animated classic might evoke that kind of disappointment (having only one other experience with them). The movie industry cigar-chompers must be fully knowledgeable of this by now. Even so, they still do them. They must be making money. We keep going to see them. Will we ever learn? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have taken the lesson to heart. Truly I have.

So, did ! enjoy it or not?

That’s the big question, isn’t it? How to Train Your Dragon – the whole trilogy – is on the annual watch list. And since the LAR was nearly an exact retelling, the answer, I guess, is ‘yes’.

BUT…

…and it’s a really BIG BUT…it’s not much different than rewatching the cartoon. And in many ways, it’s a poorer experience. Next year, I’ll watch the cartoon, not the LAR. No contest. If the LAR is your first time watching How to Train Your Dragon I’m confident that you’ll enjoy it. I’m betting there aren’t many of you in that category. For those few, I’ll give it a 4.5. For the overwhelming majority of viewers, I’ll give it a 3.5. Nothing has been enhanced, nothing new was added. And it’s a giant head’s up that the Average Dude is out on any future LARs.

Oh, and because it was hilariously unscripted and unintended…I asked (as I always do) what Mrs Average Dude thought of HtTYD. She said, and I quote: ‘I liked it. But is was draggin’ in the middle a bit.’ That really happened. I love her so much.

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Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning – I nearly forgot about you

So, lets take a little look at entertainment history. Bear with me here. There was once a time…a magical, wonderous era…where a movie sequel would be released around a year (sometimes much less) after its popular predecessor. Nowadays, two years is about the norm. Back in the day, a 2-3 year wait to find out what happened to Han Solo encased in carbonite was torturous. A cliff-hanger that had us all nearly euphoric with anticipation.

But now…? Eh, not so much

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning was released in 2023 to a tepid box office take (total gross: $571M). Mission Impossible the Final Reckoning seems on pace to at least equal that, making it a financial success for the studios. There isn’t nearly the level of excitement we had hoped for in what is reputed to be the FINAL installment of the MI franchise (until the inevitable reboot, of course).

So why the lackluster response?

It doesn’t take an overthinker (like me) to deduce the reason for the lukewarm level of anticipation. Two years of waiting today isn’t like two years of waiting back in the early 80s. Back then, we had way fewer distraction options than we do today. It’s easy for us to move on to the next Squid Game or Dutton epic. I guess its just the times we live in and we have no choice but to get used to it. Or go live off-grid.

No offense to Arnold

Even so, I was locked in on going to see Mission Impossible the Final Reckoning on opening weekend. There was enough memory of part one to entice me to see it to its conclusion. Truth to tell, a lot of that was due to the fact that this was a Tom Cruise movie. And as most of us have come to believe, Tom is Hollywood’s last actual movie star, if not the last action hero. Tom is bankable by both Hollywood and the ticket buying audience.

To Recap

Mission Impossible the Final Reckoning picks up roughly where Dead Reckoning left off. Ethan Hunt and crew have both of the crusiform keys. That’s not a spoiler. If you haven’t watched Dead Reckoning, that’s on you. You had two years. But Ethan doesn’t know what the enemy – a Skynet level AI – wants it for. On top of that, it turns out that everybody – even his own government – wants the tech that this key initializes because it would give them an unchallengable military advantage. Once again, enemies on all sides. Par for the course.

They call it a flaw, but I disagree

If Mission Impossible the Final Reckoning sounds a bit convoluted, you are right. It is.  And the writers realized that. So, they strategically placed short scenes of exposition to keep the audience up to speed on the next phase of the operation. Some reviewers are banging on the movie because of this. I actually appreciated it. When there’s a lot happening, it really helps. And not for nothing, but do none of them remember that this kind of pre-op exposition is a staple of MI movies? Sheesh. It feels like they are looking for reasons to dog this movie. Cynical much? Maybe. Justified? Also maybe.

Either way…

Whatever their reasons for dissing on Mission Impossible the Final Reckoning, The Average Dude enjoyed it for what it was…an action movie with well-established characters. I loved that it brought back a lot of memberberries from Mission’s gone bye like the Rabit’s Food (MI 3, my favorite of the franchise).

But for all it’s questionable storytelling, it wasn’t the fireworks and ‘splosions sendoff for an amazing set of characters that we wanted. And for that, we are sad. They tried to tug our hearts a bit, but it really didn’t land in the feels like they hoped it would. Neither did the suggested love interest. The action sequences were stellar, the supporting cast interactions much less. It was our goodbye to them, as well, you know. We hardly got to even wave at them.

But the movie on the whole was good enough. The Average Dude gives Mission Impossible the Final Reckoning a 3.9 out of 5. Not quite good enough for the Four Star club. It is enjoyable and we’ll miss the whole crew. And if they decide to do one more last MI, we’ll watch and hope for a more emotionally satisfying sendoff.

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