A cynic sandwich meets a baby dragon

At last weekend's screening of the live action version of "How to Train Your Dragon," I sat between two excited fans of the franchise. The friend on my left kept squeeing each time she saw Toothless the dragon and the friend on my right told me he cried three times.



Mason Thames is Hiccup and Nico Parker is Astrid in the live action ‘How to Train Your Dragon.’ PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES

There I was in between them, hoping to feel something. 



DreamWorks and its parent studio, Universal Pictures are ultimately businesses and they're out there to make money. It's no surprise they're doing what Disney's doing.

"How to Train Your Dragon" is a very faithful, no surprises adaptation of the original animated film released 2010, based in turn on a children's book by British author Cressida Cowell. 



It is so faithful to the original, the director for the animated film, Dean DeBlois is back at the helm for this one and Gerard Butler who voiced Stoick the Vast, Viking leader of the village of Berk, reprises a role that has his DNA and his fingerprints all over it. To top it off, film composer John Powell is back as well for the soundtrack.



Mason Thames is Hiccup, Stoick's son, a tribe misfit who ends up bonding with the rare baby dragon he takes down during a raid. Nico Parker is a stand out as Astrid, she doesn't quite look like the cartoon Astrid — she looks even better. I first noticed her in the pilot episode of "The Last of Us," playing Joel Miller's daughter, Sarah. She had beautiful long, wavy hair, big expressive eyes, a button nose and cute pout. She could be a cartoon drawing come to life. 



The live action "How to Train Your Dragon" is well done, the animated film serving basically as its storyboard. I found it so incredibly contrived, and ultimately devoid of even fake earnestness. 



Toothless looks really cute when his eyes do expressive things, and the exchange Stoick has with Hiccup in the end is a tad sweet but that's about it. 



My seatmates, who are such fans, will go see it again. The studio is hoping for more people like that as they've got the sequel lined up for 2027.



I also caught "From the World of John Wick: Ballerina." Ana de Armas is graceful and deadly in this non-stop action film which, apart from all manner of guns and knives, also uses hammers (a lot) and ice skates, plates and flamethrowers as weapons.

Many of the action scenes are inventive and well executed, the story is nothing new. This is another revenge tale told with the Continental, the Ruska Roma and all the elements of a fantastical criminal underworld in the ammo-addled fairytale world of John Wick in the background.

Now I need to see a non-franchise story as a palate cleanser.