Walking with Dinosaurs 3D

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

Watched With: Michael

This one skews very very young. It's a real chore to get through with some excruciatingly annoying celebrity voice overs from duelling narrators John Leguizamo and Justin Long. Absolutely terrible script that even the kids at our screening didn't get any laughs from. And very odd post-modern speech and use of modern songs in the soundtrack. I have no idea why they felt it necessary to bookend it with a modern day scenes of two kids and Karl Urban. It only adds more confusion to the structure that constantly jumps between story and narrated educational film.

It really made me miss the Disney film Dinosaur that, although made 14 years ago at least had the sense to tell a good story without the need to reference modern culture. And if you're going to have the dinosaurs talk you may as well do what that film did and lip-sync them so you don't get confused as to who is talking or which parts are narration and which parts are actually in the scene taking place. 

Because they are so focused on marketing this to kids, any moments that might be dramatic or scary are immediately undercut with bad humor to diffuse tension. Those moment are few and far between and don't last long either, so great for 3 year olds but very boring for anyone else.

Now the 3D was fine, and the landscapes and creatures look great, I'll give them that. There's quite a bit of repeated animation and a few blatant repeated shots and bits of 2d stock footage, probably to save time and money, but the visuals were the best thing about the film. 

Unless you have kids obsessed with dinosaurs that are very forgiving on quality (let's face it, most of them are) avoid this at all costs. Even then, I'd stick to Dinosaur from 2000. Actually I might rewatch it soon just for comparison.