The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Dragon Tales: When Animation Comes to Life (Or Should It?)
Dragons soar off the screen in this week's Cinema Saturday as I offer a deep-dive comparison between the animated How to Train Your Dragon and its brand-new live-action remake. The nostalgia-filled animated classic still holds up with its perfect blend of adventure and heart, earning a solid 4 out of 5 stars despite not being as kid-friendly as advertised. Those scary moments and complex dialogue might challenge the youngest viewers, but the film's imaginative world-building remains impressive.
The surprise element came when my wife and I caught the live-action adaptation starring Mason Thames, Nico Parker, and Gerard Butler. While visually stunning with its realistic dragons and breathtaking flight sequences, the remake raises questions about Hollywood's remake culture. Why recreate something almost shot-for-shot and word-for-word? The controversial casting of Astrid – changing her from a blonde Viking to an African-American character with dreadlocks – particularly stands out when every other character closely resembles their animated counterpart. The film attempts to explain this with a new "multiple tribes" backstory, but the inconsistency feels jarring against the otherwise faithful recreation.
The CGI dragons dazzle throughout most scenes, with Toothless coming to life in a way that honors his animated predecessor. However, as my wife pointed out, some moments feel "super cheesy, super green screeny," temporarily breaking the immersion. Despite these criticisms, the film delivers an entertaining experience that scores 3.5 out of 5 stars from me and 4 stars from my wife. Looking ahead, I'll be reviewing Christmas with the Kranks with Jamie Lee Curtis and Tim Allen next week, followed by the wildly contrasting double feature of Elio and 28 Years Later. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for updates, and remember to join us where every movie gets its close-up on Cinema Saturdays!
The weekend's here. It's time to unwind. Grab your snacks, leave the week behind. Blockbusters classics, they're all on the way. Let's kick it off with Cinema Saturdays.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to another Cinema Saturday episode of the Couch Critic. I'm your host, nathan, and on today's episode, if you've been following us on social media which you should you can find us on Facebook, couch Critic Podcast, and on Instagram, the Couch Critic. Go ahead, follow us. We're always getting updates about what we're going to be talking about next, and if you follow us on any of those, then you would know that today is not just one movie, but I'm also going to be doing a surprise movie review. But first let's talk about the movie review that everyone knew I was going to be talking about, and that is the animated version of how to Train your Dragon. I'm not really going to go in depth on my thoughts on that because I did rewatch it, but I was not able to watch the entire thing, and I will explain why.
Speaker 2:How to Train your Dragon was advertised as a kind of kid friendly movie and there are moments that are kid friendly, like obviously, toothless the Night Fury dragon is a cute character. There are some funny characters in the movie, but for the most part it's a pretty like not four and three-year-old friendly. There are some scary moments. There are some characters that are a little over the top, I think, for little kids and just there's a lot of talking in it and so to hold the attention of a four-year-old and a three-year-old it was not successful. So that is why I did not watch the whole thing over again. I had seen it before and I did enjoy it. I thought it was fun, I thought it was exciting, I thought it was something new. You know it was about dragons and Vikings and this Viking can't kill a dragon and all that fun stuff, I know. So I thought the original animated version was a fun adventure fantasy movie. Again, I'm not going to go in depth on my thoughts, I'm just going to go ahead and rate the animated how to train a dragon with a four out of five stars. I thought it was fun, I thought it was exciting. At the time when it first came out it was like whoa, this is really, really cool. So let's go to my surprise movie review.
Speaker 2:My wife and I went to go see the live action how to Train your Dragon. Now, last episode I said I didn't know when I was going to be able to go see it because hashtag life. But we were able to make it to a showing and so here are my thoughts. But before I can get into my thoughts I have to go over the synopsis. As an ancient threat endangers both Vikings and dragons alike on the Isle of Berk, the friendship between Hiccup, an inventive Viking, and Toothless, a Night Fury dragon, becomes the key to both species forging a new future together.
Speaker 2:How to Train your Dragon stars Mason Thames, nico Parker and Gerard Butler. Gerard Butler actually played the live-action version of the character he played in the animated version, so that was kind of cool. I thought it was really really cool how they tried to make at least majority of the characters kind of resemble their animated counterparts. Now let me just talk about something that was kind of controversial when this movie was first announced announced the casting of nico parker as astrid. In the animated version astrid is a blonde hair, blue-eyed viking girl. In this version she is not. She is african-american, she has dreads.
Speaker 2:I honestly it's kind of like with the little mermaid casting and all these other different types of casting going on. I am not as big of a like anti doing that, I really don't care. But I will say for how to Train your Dragon, the fact that every single character almost looked exactly like the animated counterpart. It kind of didn't make sense why they cast the way they did. Again, I don't care that they did it, but if you're going to cast like Gerard Butler playing the character he played in the animated film and making him look almost exactly like it, nick Frost playing a character from the movie and looking almost exactly like the counterpart from the animated film, I just I didn't make sense to me why they did it. Now, if they had everyone look completely different but they were playing similar characters, I could be more OK with them casting Astrid the way they did, but they didn't do that and so it did feel like she didn't really fit into the movie. And there was also a little minuscule moment where I'm pretty sure they were trying to throw in some white privilege dialogue between Astrid and Hiccup. So they obviously had somewhat of an idea of what they wanted to do with this character. They explained why she looks the way she does. It's because it's all these different tribes coming together to defeat these dragons, and so I guess in the original animated film it was all from the same tribe, but this movie, the live action version, it was like all these different tribes came together to defeat the dragons.
Speaker 2:I will say this about this movie I am always cautiously optimistic when it comes to live action remakes of cartoons. Now, this is not a Disney cartoon, so it doesn't have the weight of nostalgia and people caring about it as much as they would say Snow White or Lilo and Stitch and all these other animated movies that Disney just is deciding to do live action remake after live action remake. This is the first live action remake of a DreamWorks cartoon and the trailers look fantastic and I had an idea that it was going to be fairly similar to the cartoon. But then, when we started watching it, I realized that watching the animated version so close to watching this live action was not a good idea, because it felt like not only a shot for shot remake, but sometimes a word for word script remake of the animated film the same as the cartoon, and I don't know what I'm expecting when I go to these movies. So I don't know if I have a leg to stand on when it comes to.
Speaker 2:I don't want to say complaining, but pointing out how pointless these live action movies are. Now, again, the animated version of how to Train your Dragon isn't as near and dear to my heart, so I don't care as much that they made this movie, but the fact that it is so close to the animated version, it really makes you scratch your head again and say why. That being said, the fact that these dragons look a lot more realistic, obviously, than the animated version, it was really, really cool. It was cool to see the different types of dragons come to quote-unquote life through CGI. Of course, toothless looks almost exactly like his animated counterpart, so that was really cool that they were able to do that. And it's still a very endearing movie. It has fun characters, it has cool dragon sequences, it's got the cool flying through the air kind of stuff. So visually it's very stunning. But when it comes to the dialogue and the shot for shot remake of it all, it really does come off as a pointless remake, which I think is funny because I heard a interview of the director and he's not a fan of the live action remakes of cartoons, so it's kind of ironic that he's making this and he pretty much didn't.
Speaker 2:So I did ask my wife what she thought of this movie. I asked her what she liked, what she didn't like, and this was her response. So one thing that she liked is that it was very fun to watch, you know, and it's true it was fun to watch again, with the dragons and all that fun stuff, it was a very fun movie to watch. But something that she and I both agree with is that some of the CGI was a little too CGI. It's like computers have come a long way when it comes to what they can put on film, so like just the. The fact that they were able to portray some of these dragons and make them look as realistic as they could is pretty impressive, but again, it's still cgi at the end of the day. So there are some moments that come off as super cheesy, super green screeny was her wording, and so it's.
Speaker 2:You know it kind of does take you out of the film a little bit at times, but for the most part it is a fun watch, which is why she is giving how to Train your Dragon, the live action version, a four out of five and I'm going to give it a 3.5 out of five. I just think it was too much like the original, which a lot of people argue that they're going away from the original when they make these live actions and that's why they don't like them. I just don't know what I expect, I guess, but it was just so much like word for word that it kind of took me out of the movie sometimes, but at the end of the day it was fun. I'm going to give it a 3. The Cranks starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Tim Allen, and then next Saturday it's going to be a double feature with Elio and, 28 Years Later, polar opposite movies. I'm excited to talk about both of them on the Couch Critic, where every movie gets its close-up Saturdays.
Speaker 1:So grab a seat, let the credits play. We'll see you next for Cinema Saturdays.
