What a pile of . . . That was HorRAAWWWrendous. You know that scene in Jurassic Park where Laura Dern’s character was fishing through that triceratop’s excrement? Yeah, well the people who made this, must have done a similar process to make a film that bears similar properties. You get the idea? Good? A little extreme? Maybe. What infuriates me is that family movies are always outstanding examples to go by because they always have something for everyone. Unfortunately parents; if you are dragged to this particular film, grab your phones, Kindles, iPods and let the 80 minutes rush through. This will keep the little ‘uns happy, after all it is dinosaurs!
The opening scene is incredibly corny in which a frustrated teen doesn’t want to help excavate fossils with his uncle, played by the wasted (waste of talent. Not wasted, drunk. Although he must have been to accept this. That or the money) Karl Urban. The teen is left sulking by the car and along comes a talking crow, voiced by John Leguizamo (who voiced Sid in the vastly superior and coincidentally prehistoric Ice Age Franchise). The lad doesn’t have time to question why a crow is talking to him (if he’s talking to him, is it a Stewie from Family Guy thing?) before he tells a story of his ancestors cue a million year flashback to the runt Pachyrhinosaurus of the litter, Patchi (voiced by Justin Long) as he rises through the ranks of his herd and goes on a journey of love, loss and . . . the usual rubbish.
Considering the cast of voices supporting these wonderfully animated creatures, they are incredibly annoying and spew constant verbal diarrhea of cliched, corny lines that grate and make you tut and sigh. The visual world that is created, is stunning to watch. Unfortunately our cinema did not feature the 3D version but you could see how much better the film would have been for it. The voices call out every dinosaur that comes across the screen. However, the screen decides to pause and they are then labelled and read out by kids. It was completely unnecessary. Even the young ‘uns knew what the dinos were! It kept breaking up what little action there was. Strangely, the parental figures do not speak, somewhat Charlie Brown-ish? Why? I do not know.
For every good gag or one liner, there are dozens of bad ones. The fact the dinos admire a beautiful natural landscape and the Leguizamo voiced bird quickly replies, “Don’t admire it too much. It’s a future oil fill site”. Good. But that is soon let down by a ridiculous and corny OTT soundtrack of generic pop songs. For example, Patchi sees the love of his life cue Barry White. Laughable, but for all the wrong reasons. The animated breakdown of the Gorgosaurus (T-rex) had some interesting facts but was voiced by irritating commentary. A little joke about their small hands soon goes on way too long. The film skims through plot points and cliches and pretty much covers the same old flawed story of Disney’s Dinosaur (in comparison, a much more enjoyable and that was better than this. and the commentary gets more and more irritating; “Weeks turned into weekends and weekends turned into long weekends, you get the picture”. Unfortunately, yes. There is a typical story of loss that is not really explained very well nor was it needed (without spoiling the film, despite not being a fan). And the point of the family at the beginning to cue a story from a crow was unnecessary.
To be honest, I would be preferred to see that story. I couldn’t help but feel that was a lazy corny Americanized 3D adaptations of a fantastic television series. To be honest, it was a big of an insult. Would have been easier just to give the original series the 3D treatment. Sorry but this a big NO from me. See Ice Age, or go back and watch Jurassic Park or the original WWD series. Please bring back Jurassic Park! 1/5.
Currently ranked #120 out of 123!
The MAD MOVIE RANTER 
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