Remake is nice, but doesn’t soar

Over the course of two hours, the macho Vikings of the village of Berk go from despising and demonizing dragons to loving them like adorable puppies.

I can’t say I experienced the same abrupt about-face when it comes to the noxious trend of turning fantastic animated films into live-action remakes.

But, hey, at least the decent “How to Train Your Dragon” update is better than “Snow White.”

The transition from the DreamWorks CGI version from 2010, one of the best family flicks in years, to real human actors is thankfully smoother and not as off-putting as most of Disney’s recent, pitiful princess efforts.

Redoing “Dragon” in a photorealistic way actually makes sense, even if it’s just another studio ploy to plunder our wallets by rehashing their greatest hits.

The heart of the story about a misunderstood boy named Hiccup and the scaly scamp called Toothless, who becomes his unlikely best friend, still beats, if a little less magically.

Its relative success is because “Dragon” was already an action-adventure story with aerial chases, fire-breathing beasts and explosions to begin with. That’s a lot easier to swallow than the House of Mouse making a zoo hyena sing a song.

The new movie works best when our hero is soaring through the air with his pal as John Powell’s inspiring score is blared.

And it’s tear-jerking as ever watching the very well-cast 17-year-old newcomer Mason Thames as geeky Hiccup teaching Toothless, an injured Night Fury, how to fly again.

By the way, just because “Dragon” is no longer fully animated doesn’t mean the flick is “Jurassic Park.”

Toothless still has huge eyes, rather than a cold-blooded creature’s beady peepers. And he’s not really threatening at all, even before the duo become bros. Instead of making the lizards look like ferocious dinosaurs, director Dean DeBlois’ movie keeps them toy-like and unscary.

Fine. It’s a movie for children — and depressed millennials.

Where “Train” derails are the supposed-to-be-funny scenes in the dumb little town of Berk, the aesthetic of which is “Game of Thrones” if Westeros was inhabited by the Teletubbies.

The script is almost word-for-word the same as the original. Big mistake. Without the chipperness of animation, the jokes all fall flat. The lines are too simple, and the characters who speak them are obnoxious. I became more annoyed by the adults in this movie than their hormonal kids were.

Gerard Butler as Hiccup’s strict chieftain dad Stoick, who wants his loner son to become a dragon killer, is just plain dreadful as he stomps around harrumphing and brooding. He really is the haggis of actors.

The other rascally teens training alongside Hiccup to be dragon slayers — including Nico Parker as his warrior crush Astrid — fare better. But their characters are, well, too cartoony to believe. The dialogue could’ve used some rewrites.

Whenever the movie ventures into the forest and homes in on the sweet friendship of Thames and Toothless, even the iciest crank will melt.

OK, so “How to Train Your Dragon” is watchable.

That doesn’t make the live-action remake trend any less toothless.