Walking With Dinosaurs Movie Funny Parts
First-rate animation done a disservice by a third-rate script.
Dinosaurs have long proved a source of fascination for human beings - the notion that magnificent lizard-beasts used to rule the world we now live in... well, it would almost be the stuff of science-fiction, except it's just pure, unmitigated science. Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie - created using the same technology pioneered by BBC Earth for its classic 14-year-old dinosaur documentary - has decided to go fully into the realm of fiction. The result is wildly uneven, featuring spectacular animation but a laboured script that only occasionally manages to rustle up some interest and laughs.
Patchi (voiced by Justin Long) is the runt of the pachyrhinosaurus tribe. Small and clumsy, he seems fated to play second fiddle to his swifter, meaner brother Scowler (Skylar Stone) for the rest of his life. He's even thwarted in pursuing Juniper (Tiya Sircar), the girl of his dreams, when his brother wrests control of the tribe. As Patchi struggles to find his destiny, his tribe keeps strictly to their migration schedule - one which routinely takes them through a literal valley of death ruled over by their world's fiercest predator: the Gorgosaurus.
In visual terms, Walking With Dinosaurs is an undeniable treat. The gorgeously-animated dinosaurs, seemingly photo-real, have been transposed onto lushly-shot live-action footage of New Zealand and Alaska. As Alex (John Leguizamo), our winged Alexornis host, swoops over the rolling terrain, it's almost possible to believe that dinosaurs still roam the Earth.
What works considerably less well is John Collee's uninspired script. It's clearly targeted at children, but in an almost insulting manner. Alex's narration manages to be funny every once in a while - a particular highlight being his discussion of the Gorgosaurus' miniscule forearms (reminiscent of its T-Rex cousin). But, in the main, the dialogue between the dinosaurs is flat and comes close to silly, while Karl Urban and his young charges wander in for a few pretty pointless shots used to book-end Patchi's narrative.
This might work quite well for the very youngest of children, but adults and anyone above the age of ten might find themselves wishing ardently for the animation to be allowed to speak for itself. It's certainly rendered in impressive enough fashion - there's plenty more soul and depth in the eyes and actions of these great beasts than in their words. As it turns out, there might be some merit to watching Walking With Dinosaurs as a silent movie: it was originally conceived as such before the powers that be decided that it had to be rendered more kid- and family-friendly (i.e., more accessible).
There have been some truly great dinosaur movies made in our lifetime: ones brimming with action and tension (Jurassic Park) and others that deal particularly well in humanity and heartbreak (The Land Before Time). Walking With Dinosaurs tries for both and ends up with neither... although, to be fair, it does march along in mostly inoffensive fashion. Just don't expect too much from its narrative.
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Even more visually stunning than the BBC series, this 3D feature update is ultimately no more than a kids flick no thanks to the addition of kid-friendly Disney-fied dialogue
The most obvious departure of this 3D feature spin off from the acclaimed BBC series with the same name on which it is based is the fact that the titular dinosaurs actually talk. Well to be honest, talk might be a bit of an overstatement seeing as how the characters' mouths don't actually move much; rather, what we have is an attempt to humanise these dinosaurs for a young target audience, which in the minds of the filmmakers, means fitting Disney-fied dialogue into the picture.
As scripted by 'Happy Feet's' John Collee, the kid-friendly plot follows the template of a coming-of-age story where a young Pachyrhinosaurus named Patchi (voiced by Justin Long) grows into a leader over the course of a long migration. His companion and buddy happens to be a prehistoric parrot that goes by the name of Alex (voiced by John Leguizamo), who forms the bridge between the opening modern-day sequence - featuring a cameo by Josh Duhamel - and 70 million years back where most of the action unfolds.
Cast as timid and socially awkward, the film introduces Patchi as the runt of the litter, easily distinguishable from the rest of his siblings by a hole on the right side of his frill following a close shave with a predator as a kid. A change in the weather patterns prompts his herd's migration by his father Bulldust, which sets into motion a chain of events that will have Patchi eventually claiming the honour of leading the herd. It isn't just his inner strength that Patchi will discover by the end of the journey; along the way, Patchi also finds a romantic interest in the form of Juniper (Tiya Sircar), a fellow Pachyrhinosaurus he experiences love at first sight with.
As far as children-oriented pictures go, the story in this one is on many accounts too simplistic. There is some attempt to inject dramatic tension by setting up Patchi's rivalry with his brutish older brother Scowler (Skyler Stone), but it is hardly compelling stuff. Same goes for the storybook romance between Patchi and Juniper, which to no surprise builds to a happily-ever-after ending. In fact, much more entertaining is Patchi's loquacious friend and ally Alex, whose non-stop chatter consisting of all sorts of puns makes him the undeniably most engaging one of the lot.
Truth be told though, little would be lost if directors Barry Cook and Neil Nightingale had simply done away with the formulaic story. Simply put, the visuals are stunning, seamlessly mixing CGI with breathtaking backdrops in Alaska and New Zealand to transport its audience back in time into a world when dinosaurs ruled the Earth; and the experience is even more awe-inspiring captured on film using the cutting-edge cinematographic technology which James Cameron had employed for 'Avatar'. Seeing as how tacked on the dialogue feels to the visuals of the movie, one can't quite help but feel that the filmmakers should simply have stuck with the original's documentary approach.
Of course, Nightingale is no stranger to that; as the creative director of BBC Earth and the producer of countless other nature documentaries, he is more than well versed in the language of non-fiction. Unfortunately, he seems to have given freer rein to Cook, whose background in animated features like 'Mulan' and 'Arthur Christmas' has resulted in what is essentially a live-action Disney cartoon about dinosaurs. In spite of the occasional educational cards sharing the scientific names of the dinosaurs and their general dietary preference (whether herbivore or carnivore or omnivore), there is no shaking off the feeling that the charm of the original series has been largely lost on its journey to the big screen.
Not that the US$85 million dollar production is without merit - like we said, the combination of computer animation and live-action is never less than impressive and captivating, demonstrating the leaps and bounds by which technology has advanced since Steven Spielberg first enthralled the world using animatronics in 'Jurassic Park'. On that account alone, it should more than be a fascinating watch for the kiddies; grown-ups though will have a harder time immersing themselves into the lifelike world, ultimately challenged by the artificial dialogue and even more clichéd plot.
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Should have been silent.
Well I like millions of others love the idea of learning about dinosaurs, from children to the elderly there is just something fascinating about them. I am far from a palaeontologist, my love has come from having toys as a kid, TV shows and the Jurassic Park series, so I was so excited to see this film.
I'm not sure why but I assumed a film being released on Boxing Day would be a guaranteed classic, boy was I wrong. I wont spoil the so called "plot" of this film, as I don't think that's fair to people who want to see it.
The positives are there though, the animation and the effects are genuinely beautiful and the fact there were elements of learning in the movie is a nice added bonus especially for children. The first annoyance I had and this may sound a little cheap is that I didn't and most wont recognise any of the dinosaurs in this film, they look familiar but none of the "classic" or "well known" dinosaurs are here.
The dinosaurs do have voices, but unlike any good animation film they didn't have vocal movements on the characters, all of it was dubbed over the action and sometimes it was hard to work out who was actually talking, that was my biggest complaint, something I felt was a lazy move by the creator.
The plot is horrendous and extremely dull, it would have been a good hour show on the television on the discovery channel if the voices weren't there. None of the characters are that interesting and they make a very lame attempt to make the lead come across endearing and someone who you want to back for success, sadly he isn't, the film has poor character development and most of the characters are one dimensional and very irritating.
I loved watching the dinosaurs and found some of it educational, but this film would have been better without the poor voices and done as an experience of the amazement that dinosaurs bring rather than a very poor story. Kids wont enjoy the story any better, I'm a huge kid film fan but this is just not a good watch.
I'd recommend buying this when its in the bargain bin in a local shop and watch it without sound, just to appreciate the effects and the wonder of that era.
What a waste of potential!!!
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Studio couldn't decide which way to go
The overall story is one of a misfit runt overcoming obstacles as he grows up. We've seen the story before, nothing new. CGI is impressive and they even had enough sense to include footprints the dirt, so it seems more like the dinos are grounded, more real. It was hard to tell if the background was CGI or real life film w/ dinos added. The studio decided to frame the dino story with a modern day teenager not wanting to see his uncle in Alaska. Totally unnecessary, didn't need it, wasted time. Each time a new dinosaur entered the story, the movie did a freeze frame, the dinos name and an explanation of the name was give. Very disrupting. Then the dinos would use that name to refer to that dino-as if we would call each other Homo Sapien. A lot of the dialog was a bit too cute with references back to the modern world. I took my kid, he liked it, but that was probably because it was a movie about dinosaurs regardless of content. I found it mildly annoying. Strickly kids fare.
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How to spend 80 million dollars to nothing
Walking with Dinosaurs could be a good documentary movie if it wouldn't be ruined. I can't understand how anybody in Hollywood got an idea to order a good quality documentary film from BBC then go and ruined it with stupid idea to film totally unnecessary beginning and end to it, write a idiotic script and hire few neighborhood kids to read it over the film. If the idea was to make a children movie where dinosaurs speak, I'm sure the dinosaurs were animated to speak. Now the result is totally mish mash. It feels like somebody got an idea to record documentary film from television, then film with a home video camera totally unnecessary beginning and end to it. Ask 6-years old child to write a script and then dub the whole film with neighborhood kids and then send it to worldwide theatrical distribute. I can't understand how any Hollywood studio could spend 80 million dollars to this and release it to worldwide. If the budget were 8 million and it was released straight to DVD, Then I could understand it. Now this is totally underestimate film audience. I wish I could get my money back. I give one star for beautiful animation, not anything else.
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My daughter absolutely loved it.
If you see this expecting a grown-up style documentary, you'll be disappointed. It's clearly made for a very young audience, and I think they did a fantastic job in that regard.
The animation was fantastic,it was quite educational, it had characters that the kids fall in love with, and it wasn't too long. My 6 year old has been on a real dino-kick all year, and she was on the edge of her seat for this entire film. She even thought the humor was hilarious. If you like watching your kid really enjoy something, take them to this film. If you want something for the entire family, including grown ups, then you're better off with something else. I see the negative reviews, and I can't help but think that a lot of folks just have the wrong expectations.
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"She likes me...and she likes my hole."
Very nice animation but this is for very small children. The dialogue is inane. There's upbeat fluffy songs. There are even poop jokes. It's pretty juvenile stuff. The voice actors are annoying, particularly John Leguizamo. That doesn't surprise me as he is one of the worst people pretty much ever. I agree with another reviewer who said they should have made it without the animals talking or think-talking. It would have worked much better and might have appealed to a broader audience than those still wearing diapers. I'm surprised they put so much effort into the animation just to make something so slight. If you have little kids or if you have suffered a concussion recently, this is an innocuous little picture you might enjoy. The rest of you, try to watch it with the sound off.
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Kids liked it and I liked the break it gave me
The film Walking with Dinosaurs has tremendous potential. It tells the story of Patchi (Justin Long) a Pachyrhinosaurus as he struggles to make his way in the dinosaur world. Patchi is brave and kind and despite being the runt of the litter has an incredible knack of survival in an extremely treacherous environment. The digital animation for this film is second to none and the dinosaurs are literally brought to life right in front of the screen. We saw it in 2d and it did not make much difference. My two and four year old loved it and I think a little boy obsessed with dinosaurs would love it even more. I was a little disappointed with the script finding it clichéd and predictable at times. Some stories lacked development but it did give me an hour and a half of rest whilst my girls sat enthralled. It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
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Dull and repetitive
I initially shrugged off this BBC production as unworthy of a visit to my local multiplex, but with a decent trailer and an excited child, I changed my mind. I shouldn't have. Although not completely dire, this quasi-lesson in prehistoric creatures is dull and repetitive. Following a Rhino-type dinosaur named Patchi (voiced by Justin Long) from birth through to adulthood, it's predictable, episodic and melodramatic, squandering any potential it may have had with a story that could've been interesting and meaty whilst being educational. The animation of the beasts – inserted into real shots of a lovely New Zealand backdrop – is better than you may expect, however the choice to have the voices sounding over the top of the action (ie, their mouths aren't moving) is distracting and at times unintentionally humorous. Despite my boredom and negativity, my seven year old daughter seemed to enjoy the experience, but I'm sure this was heightened with popcorn and soft drink.
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we loved it!!!!!!!!!
Warning: Spoilers
I let my son (4) rate it and he loves it. All the kids I know who've seen it liked it a lot. Adults are annoyed by the talking and annoying voices but that's what kids love. They don't stop talking for a second and something is always happening. It's not boring although it is very long. I find it hilarious that there's some rogue paleontologist just taking his nephew and niece out on an expedition with no team or camp??? lol (lazy). If your child is used to sitting through full-length movies it's really fun for them. It's exciting without crossing the line. Sometimes I just put it on in the background on silent, my son knows all the lines and the graphics look real so it's just cool scenery.
I understand being disappointed because of the name. They shouldn't have used the name "Walking with Dinosaurs" just to capitalize off of it as it is entirely different from the educational "Walking with Dinosaurs" 1999 version. They could have done "from the creators of "Walking with Dinosaurs" or something.
But it's not that bad, I should know, I've seen about 1000 and... 3 times now? I lost count. Kids aren't always taking in the same lessons you think they are anyway, stories are good too for teaching, like compassion... how Patchi goes back at the end to save his brother even though he had abandoned him, my son tears up at that. people seem too focused on jamming facts down children's throats they forget about fantasy. My son memorized every dinosaur in that anyway. Kids will learn the realism of dinosaur times when they're older leave the fun in childhood!
Anyway, people just need to learn to laugh things off. :D
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What a waste of great animation !
I'll be short: Great 3d animation wrapped around a stupid script that even kids found to be idiotic. There... I was a big fan of the show, and had great expectations about this movie. After seen "land before time" and "dinosaur" I expected this movie to raise the bar, both technically and in the narrative department. Wrong. The animation is top notch, not discussion, even better that "dinosaur" that was very good already, but when it came to the screenplay, and those dialogs, man, that was painful to watch. I mean, I saw kids yawning in the theater. A story may be simple, but never boring. Dialogs may be sparse, but entertaining or funny. The dialogs here where just plain dumb, boring and cliché. 5 out of 10 for me.
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Dull, patronizing lecture from a teacher with more enthusiasm than knowledge.
Sometimes you have a gut feeling; sometimes the trailer tells you all you need to know despite the gut feeling; but sometimes two young nephews don't know quality, they just know they want their uncle to take them to the movies. And so it was I endured Walking with Dinosaurs 3D.
Using the flimsiest of devices to launch the 'plot', writer John Collee, presumably on his day off with his eyes closed and his brain suffering the effects of the night before, discovers that plot holes can be disguised if there is no substance surrounding the holes. Good work.
More impressive is the work of directors Barry Cook and Neil Nightingale (it always concerns me when a film requires more then one director and neither of them is a Cohen brother) who somehow persuaded Karl Urban to top and tail this bland paleontology lesson. Presumably they saved his first born from a rabid vampire and he's paying off the debt.
OK, deep breath… Uncle Zack (Urban) takes his niece & nephew on a dinosaur excavation out in the open where nobody else has seen the exposed fossil. Nephew resists and waits by the car (yawn) until a crow/raven/who cares(?) lands on the car, speaks patronizingly at him without moving his beak and transmogrifies into an annoying, colourful, prehistoric bird called Alex (John Leguizamo), as in Alexornis. Alex doesn't so much tell the story as talk at him/us like an inept teacher with more enthusiasm than knowledge. He tells us the story of Patchi, the runt of a pachyrhinosaurus litter, who will inevitably save the day, the dinosaurs and probably life as they know it. There's an older brother who plays the villain, there's a love interest of sorts and there's a catastrophe waiting to be averted.
Remove the voices and erase all the CGI creatures and Walking with Dinosaurs 3D would be a pleasant video of some attractive scenery. As it stands, it is a dull, patronizing lecture from a team that doesn't care enough to even pretend that the animals are talking, preferring to slap the dialogue haphazardly across the video with little thought of expression, emphasis or, frequently, even what is occurring on the screen. Heck, on more occasions than I care to think about, dinosaurs manage to 'speak' while simultaneously growling/moaning/barking with completely different voices!
Predictably, both three- and five-year-old nephew emerged proclaiming Walking with Dinosaurs 3D to be 'amazing' and 'awesome'. However, I've taken them to numerous films and watched them enrapt with the magic before them. In Walking with Dinosaurs 3D, there wasn't a single laugh between them (or from anyone else in the cinema for that matter) and while Roocayke (the five-year-old) wriggled and fidgeted, Malarkey evidently found the film far more palatable sans 3D glasses. More tellingly, while The Muppets had Malarkey bouncing for weeks and Roocayke will devour Fraggle Rock endlessly, neither of them has mentioned Walking with Dinosaurs 3D even once since we pulled away from the cinema. All talk was finished with on the twenty second walk to the car.
If you're looking to reward your children and this is all that's on at your local cinema, put on a DVD. If you're looking for a punishment, however
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Brilliant for the kids
Looking at some of the comments it seem as if grown-ups seriously think that this movie was made for them. Guys, that movie is for the kids, and it is brilliant as such: awesome live-like animations, great music and sound effects, and yes, a touchingly simple story about a dino who made it all by using his head - and not for brute force attacks only :-) I also liked the dubbing style - where dinosaurs do not open their mouths for talking, as all the talking part is really in the style of making the dinosaurs look more human-like without sacrificing the reality. All of my kids 8, 7 and 3 years old loved this movie and watched it several times already. If you want a documentary style film about dinosaurs, simply move on and stop whimpering about this one. Or switch off the sound! :-D Otherwise grab your kids and enjoy the show.
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Fun, nicely done, only for children above 6.
The movie is nice,and fun to watch. The noises and roars are quite loud and there is an underlying story about life,death,love and sacrifice, I would'nt recommend it for children under the age of 6 years old, they could get nightmare's or just don't get the story. I like how they used real scenery and added the cgi to it. Its cost effective? ( how the heck did they spend 80 mil on this ) I read about complains about how the dinosaurs don't move their lips... DUH dino's cant talk ;) You see and hear them make sounds and then hear what they are thinking/ how they would communicate in English language, which i think is a great.
Good watch.
Peace
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I was being very kind with my 4* rating
So I took my 5 year old to see this film today and it really was a let down. My son loves dinosaurs and was really looking forward to it but you could tell he was getting bored of it as was I. Usually he will quite happily sit through a whole film at the cinema and just be completely engrossed in it but the story for this film is so terrible that it couldn't seem to hold his attention at all.
For a film called walking with dinosaurs I expected there to be loads of dinosaur species in it but there were very few and there were none of the most well known dinosaurs like the t-rex, much to my son's disappointment.
I really just found it boring which is such a shame as it could have been such an amazing film, I mean it was absolutely beautiful (hence the 4 stars) but I do wish that I hadn't have bothered.
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A disgrace to the "Walking with Dinosaurs" name.
Warning: Spoilers
Disclaimer: I marked my review as having spoilers, despite the fact that the plot is as predicable as the phases of the moon, because I "revealed" plot details even though you will undoubtedly know them the instant the story begins.
I caught the original "Walking with Dinosaurs" documentary when it first aired in 2000. It was a truly groundbreaking experience, combing state-of-the-art CGI with nature documentary-style storytelling in a television program. It has held up over the years quite well, and was followed by equally-good sequels including "Prehistoric Beasts" and "Monsters".
Fast forward 13 years later, and we now have a motion picture based on the name. A brand new "Walking with Dinosaurs", set on following the life of a Pachyrhinosaurus as he braves the Prehistoric Alaskan wilderness, encountering other dinosaurs such as the predatory Gorgosaurus and the giant, but gentle, Edmontonia, all told with beautiful cinematography and top-notch CGI.
That sounds great, right? Well, what happened BBC? What the hell happened? I feel like I've been treated like an idiot. Walking With Dinosaurs: The Movie has zero charm, annoying and atrocious voice overs, a bare bones plot straight out of The Land Before Time, except without the emotion or drama, and a completely pointless frame story about a kid, his sister, and his uncle (as modern day humans, annoyingly) digging for fossils.
It seems the filmmakers were originally intending on making this film a docudrama in the style of the original, and this would have been great. We would have really been invested in the individual dinosaurs as we followed them through their lives, and it would have been really immersive and engaging.
But nope. Someone somewhere down the line decided that we needed half-assed, and rushed, voice overs to be able to know what the dinosaurs are thinking/doing, because apparently the studio executives think that audiences cannot understand body language, or the fact that film is a visual medium first and foremost. But given all the flak aimed at films like Avatar and Pacific Rim, they might be justified in that assumption. But the fact is is that we are smarter than that, and there was no reason to add these voice overs other than the pander to the lowest common denominator.
And the fact that the voice overs sound like they were added late in production only serves to drive the point home. It sounds like the voice actors were not reading off of script, but rather watching the film and trying to do their dialogue in real time, like a bunch of 12-year old youtube commentators trying to be funny by adding voices to silent characters or animals. Then there is the fact that their is no lip-synching whatsoever. None.
The story is a shadow of the plot used in Land Before Time. Main character hatches from egg and is raised by parent, his dad dies protecting him from a predator in the midst of a natural disaster (a wildfire this time around), he grows up, deals with hardships, falls in love, and comes back to beat those pesky predators, while winning the girl of his dreams. That is all there is to the plot. You cannot get any more by-the-numbers than that in this day and age.
The humor is awful, because the 10-year old that wrote this script must have had some fascination with butt jokes and derivatives. Our main character has a hole in his head where the hole in the skull is, on the right side (left side in the promotional materials, for some reason). Gaze in amazement as every joke about his "nice hole" comes out as sounding like forced innuendo in a script that makes Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen look like a Christopher Nolan masterpiece.
The music is a mixed bag. On one hand, the music used for the first Pachy migration sequence and the Edmontosaurus migration were pretty decent and fitting, and then there pop songs. In a dinosaur film. Why.
Enough ranting already. The visuals are nothing short of spectacular, featuring gorgeous photography of the Alaskan geography as brilliantly-rendered dinosaurs and pterosaurs frolic amongst the landscape, with attention to detail paid in footprints and the animation.
Unfortunately, anything the film gets right is immediately drown out by the ear-grating voice overs and juvenile script that serves only to pander to the youngest portion of the viewer base. Walking With Dinosaurs may be a treat for the youngsters, but older viewers who actually posses a legitimate interest in paleontology will be turned off and left confused and enraged.
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Awful
Saw this movie on New Years Eve with my family. At first I thought they were playing the wrong movie. Well it wasn't. Paid extra for the 3-D what a waste of my time and money. I feel like someone should have paid me to see this. What's even worse is that no one knows until they are in there seeing the piece of crap. All the trailers conveniently leave out the fact that there are real people in it and that some dumb bird is going to be taking during the entire movie. Just shut up for goodness sake Patchie. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME ON THIS ONE. I am not sure it will even be worth the money you pay when it comes to red box. Maybe if this were shown on PBS for free it would be tolerable. Just felt so betrayed by how this movie was portrayed in trailers. Very sneaky way to get people to pay to see this film. Don't try to trick an audience into something other than what the movie is.
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Missed oppurtunity; almost outright depressing
Walking with Dinosaurs is almost outright depressing. I thought it had finally happened; that this was going to be the film that Disney's Dinosaur could and should have been. I thought that we were finally going to see a realistic and purely visual Baraka-esque spectacle that flung us into our own homeworld as inhabited by dinosaurs. What did we get instead? More dinos exchanging modern lingo with obnoxious voices. Only this time they were added hastily just a few days before the film's release and aren't synced to any discernable mouth movements.
How is it possible these people let themselves not only repeat Disney's mistake, but do an even worse job? Did they really not realize what a mesmerizing film this could have been? Even if the intention was to make it more kid-friendly, have film producers so completely lost their faith in the intelligence of children that they think they won't be interested in seeing dinos that are almost indistinguishable from real life without having them be voiced by, say, John Leguizamo or Justin Long?
Partially based on those similarly named documentary films from BBC, the movie focuses on, well, a bunch of dinos. The story is narrated by Leguizamo's character, an Alexornis bird, and involves three Pachyrhinosaurus voiced by Justin Long, Tiya Sircar and Skyler Stone. Most of all, the film's story is about how one of them evolves from an unwanted underdog youngling into a heroic and strong adult.
So a clichéd underdog tale, huh? Sounds about right. Clearly kids will find that infinitely more enthralling than actually feeling as though they're beholding REAL GODDAMN DINOSAURS in their original, voiceless majesty in what could easily have been the next Koyaanisqatsi. You guys see how boring that last part sounds? Icky. I want my inane, tacked on voice-overs back!
The film is bookended with scenes of Karl Urban and what I think was supposed to be his nephew or somesuch. They are in a museum looking at a dinosaur exhibit together. Strange that the nephew agrees to put up with looking at those dinosaurs all day, isn't it? It's almost as if he doesn't need to hear a bunch of awkwardly dubbed lines of pointless dialogue in order to be interested in seeing dinosaurs up close. Weird, I know.
In all seriousness, though, the film was at least not planned this way. I am aware of that. The trainwreck that some of you probably saw in the theatre the other day is a shadow of the film's former self. What you saw was an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 without the comedy, so you can still see the lovely little movie that this was originally meant to be. It's not all that spectacular and definitely not on the same level as the aforementioned Koyaanisqatsi, but boy does it seem so much more enjoyable than what we ended up with!
I am compelled to give this film a 1 but I feel that it is unfair to the people who worked on the Walking With Dinosaurs that was meant to be, and can still be partially observed behind all the meaningless additions made by studio executives that understand the minds of children just as much as they understand the value of great art. I hated what this movie became but I don't hate what it wanted to be. Even so, it is what it is and what it is is insufferable. The final score is a 2 with apologies to those who never intended for this.
I'm admittedly a bit clueless as to whether this uniquely idiotic decision truly was a studio choice or if it was a choice made by the filmmakers, but the former seems the most likely. Whatever the case, I'm just glad these fools were nowhere near Microcosmos when that was being made, since they'd probably have tried to make it more kid-friendly by having the insects speak to each other in various obnoxious voice-overs provided by the comedic talents of Rob Schneider and Tyler Perry. Parents everywhere would still, however, be petrified that it would be too boring for anyone under the age of 5 so they'd probably also convert it into 3D to be on the safe side.
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Much better if you wear earplugs if you are older than 7
Warning: Spoilers
The storyline has many similarities with other more famous and better family films (such as Lion King, Bambi, Fox and the hound) and is not a problem at all, although the underlying and, supposedly, subliminal messages and end are very predictable. The special effects of the dinosaurs in every form of action is marvelous, very realistic body movements, expressions and fight sequences. They are far more realistic than any animated movies I have seen.
I took my two and four year old grandsons and neither of them were scared or uncomfortable with the story or fight sequences. This is a kids movie and rated as such would score about a 7.
Unlike other reviewers I did not have any problems when the movie froze when a new dinosaur came into the plot and a young child's voice interjected to give a brief description of the dinosaur's basic characteristics. What irritated me was the slang-riddled voices of the characters -- especially Alex with silly and overly accented comments -- which became more wearing as the movie progressed, for which I docked 2 points from the overall experience.
Enjoy it as a good movie for young children.
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I will not take this walk again, that's for sure
Warning: Spoilers
The movie begins with a family traveling by car and they are searching for traces of animals that have extinct from Earth million years ago. At some point the boy hears a crow speaking and from here the story begins. We see the life of a dinosaur from the moment he was a cub until the moment he is mature. While he was little he had many obstacles to outrun like avoid being eaten by others predators and not to be accidentally stepped by his own kind. He frequently receive help from his mother when he was in danger. Time passes and now he learned to defend himself even meet a soul mate, but the real exam is when he must take a decision in witch he must choose to abandon a relative in peril or jump and help him along with the flock with the risk of injure his fellows.
I think the directors of this animated movie tried unsuccessfully to borrow some ideas from other films like Ice Age or Tangled. There are not connected but the happenings are similar such as love and migration. The 3D effects are excellent but the fact that the animals are not moving their mouth when speaking is just lame. I mean why put effort and create such nice effects if you can't bother to make them more real or compelling? For the audience this fact is irritating but at the same time gives to the movie a plus of reality because animals don't talk. But considering that we see an animation this situation should not be avoided.
I don't believe it's a bad movie but on a scale of 1 to 10, it's almost a 5 but not quite. 4.5 is just fair.
Conclusion: watch it, enjoy it and that's all.
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Terrific CGI but horrible voice acting & clichéd storytelling
Warning: Spoilers
I've seen the movie weeks ago and although I marvel the wonderful CGI the downfall for this movie is voice acting and the clichéd storytelling. The movie feels like a documentary but smeared with cheesy and appalling voice acting and the story was just absolutely clichéd that it feels like a Disney film, and I'm a fan of Disney's work mostly there animation. You have a dinosaur falling for a girl, but the tough one takes away the girl of his dream (which is the brother), you have the stupid big brother, who's the bully of the film, who thinks he can lead a group but he couldn't and the runt of the lot comes and saves the day, gets the girls of his dream blah, blah, blah we heard it all before!
The only voice that I find funny was the bird who was telling the story towards the viewers. But the opening scene of the boy who doesn't care for dinosaur was just so pointless to begin with. They could've just leave as the dinosaur story.
The only praise that I give for this movie was the CGI and that's it. If kids want to know about dinosaurs they can sit through a documentary about it from the BBC and be amazed by it. You don't need such clichéd storytelling for kids to love dinosaurs.
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A Major Disappointment
When I saw this film in theatres, I expected to see an adult, eye-opening, documentary about the dangers that the dinosaurs faced in life. I expected a silent, serious documentary with a narrator. I was looking forward to seeing this film, and I was like, "Wow, this film looks like an excellent, eye-opening thriller documentary about dinosaurs. It should be pretty cool, right?"
WRONG.
Walking with Dinosaurs 3D offers us an hour and a half of unfunny juvenile jokes, talking dinosaurs whose mouths don't move, potty humor, and poor voice acting. But seriously, TALKING DINOSAURS?!?! The film's characters aren't very interesting, and in my opinion, they completely slow down the story's plot. The film's "narrator" (which is basically some bird voiced by John Leguizamo) is INCREDIBLY annoying. Hell, every single pointless joke that he cracks literally dumbs down the audience! The movie literally opens up with these kids in their uncle's car driving to some fossil site. I thought that they were playing the wrong movie. I was like WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THAT?!?!?! This is a dinosaur movie, dammit! Then, the obnoxious narrator pops in, and here is where the audience is introduced to the world of talking dinosaurs. About halfway into the movie, some random kid's voice pops in and says which dinosaur each character is and says it's name. Again, completely random and forced. I am not going to say everything about the story since I remember so little about it, but this film is just bad. Although the film's visuals and CGI animation is incredible, this film is very boring, unintelligent, and lacks proper character and film development.
I rate this film a 4.1/10, and unless you are under 10 years of age, this film is a definite miss.
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Looking forward to the DVD so I can watch it without sound
Warning: Spoilers
I found this movie visually stunning. It's the best dinosaur CGI yet...better than Jurassic Park or the Walking with Dinosaurs documentary series. Although it uses the "Walking with..." name, and apparently was produced as another film in that series, it is really much more akin to Disney's 2000 film Dinosaur. That also had talking dinosaurs as well as the same "young dinosaur coming of age and becoming leader of the herd theme". The dialog and voice acting in Dinosaur were much better than this one though. I found both of these in Walking with Dinosaurs quite annoying. I liked John Leguizamo as Sid in the Ice Age movies, but quickly grew tired of him in this movie. I should note that, as of this writing, I've only seen this in the 2D version. I plan to see it also in the 3D, which should be even better visually. Maybe I'll take some headphones so I don't have to listen to that dialog again ;)
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A poor movie with a thin plot. Spend those $10 getting your kid a book about dinosaurs instead.
The plot was paper-thin. The visuals were nice and if you're all about visuals and don't care if the movie itself has nothing to it, maybe you could enjoy this at some level.
To me, the worst part were the annoying voice-overs with random dinosaur/animal facts that would pop up every 10-15 minutes. Even with a runtime just over 80 minutes, the plot was so lacking that they had to have 5 minutes pausing to add dinosaur facts to make it long enough for a feature movie.
There are worse movies out there, sure... but this one isn't really worth seeing. The voices added nothing to the film. Justin Long should stick to selling overpriced white buggy computers.
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Great movie for kids, unfortunately grown-ups are missing the point
We took the kids to see "Walking with Dinosaus" in 3D and enjoyed it thoroughly. My kids, 4 of them, aging 5 through 13 enjoyed it a lot. However, the theater was about half full and it was the opening night, which reflected the online critic reviews and ratings I've been seeing for this movie.
I agree the script was lame, and this movie in no way lives up to the expectation of the award-winning "Walking with ..." documentaries. However, such low rating for a movie targets towards kids seem a little harsh. I noticed most reviews agreed the visuals are stunning. And the "talking" part is not entirely useless, the witty dialog of "Alex" were hilarious and helped explain a lot of concepts to kids in a funny way. The only drawback then was the weak 'boy-meets-girl' plot and the dialog that went with it.
But I tried looking at the many plus points this movie brings. It is possibly, the most visually stunning and accurate portrayal of Dinosaurs living in the late Cretaceous. It also introduces many Dinosaurs in a fun yet educational way to kids, and shows that there is more to that world than the other pop-culture versions of man-eating T.Rex and Gigantic Sauropods.
It may end up being a box-office bomb, but I look forward to owning this in DVD or Netflix, and enjoying the experience all over again with my kids.
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1762399/reviews
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