The best thing, worst thing, and main thing about the CG Dino flick “Walking with Dinosaurs” in about the time it takes to watch the trailer. Also don’t forget to take a shot at the best ever challenge in the comments!
REVIEW TEXT:
Look someone made a scientifically accurate remake of Land Before Time. Well as scientifically accurate as sarcastic talking dinosaurs can get I suppose.
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“Walking with Dinosaurs” is a computer generated dinosaur movie about the life of Patchi, the ultimate underdog (underdino maybe?), and how he triumphed as a hero in his pack. The movie is animated as if to be photo realistic but features the voice work of John Leguizamo and Justin Long to let us know what these animals are thinking or saying, or something. I’m not really sure. It’s kinda like they are talking, but they are also growling. Maybe it’s like a dino to human translation, I have no idea, anyhow, there are voices.
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Let’s talk good stuff first, the movie does look beautiful. The best thing has to be the stunning animation and design of these creatures. As many dinosaur movies as we’ve seen by this point, I’m still amazed that these creatures once walked around this earth and to see them shot in such detail is at times breathtaking. And that’s about it… Seriously I’m racking my brain for something else good to highlight. The score maybe? I guess the music fit well. And it seemed like maybe the kids in the theater enjoyed a couple of the poop jokes. And maybe this is just one of those movies that your kids want to see and you have to suffer through, and boy is there some suffering.
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The movie plays like a half hearted nature documentary, stopping down from the plot occasionally to teach us about a particular dinosaur, if by teach us, you mean it gives us the scientific name and tells us what it means. And so much of the “story” is contrived to try and explain how dinosaurs might have lived, which makes the whole endeavor feels forced and disconnective. Plus the movie starts and ends with these completely unnecessary and nonsensical scenes with a check cashing Karl Urban. But the worst thing? That’s easily the dialogue. These lines are some of the most inane and unfunny I’ve been forced to sit through. It made me wonder if the movie would have been better off without any script. Just show me the beautiful dinosaurs doing their thing and leave me to figure out their feelings and motivations for myself. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could sit two of my boys in front of the screen and have them make up the lines and I would have enjoyed it much more.
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Overall “Walking with Dinosaurs” is a waste of time if you are over the age of 9. The horrible writing, and confused presentation completely ruin the incredibly beautiful visuals. I give it a generous C-.
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