Walking with Dinosaurs 3D – Film Review

Adequate but disappointing and blanded-out big-screen 3D spinoff from the BBC’s 1999 TV series. It features a wisecracking cuddly prehistoric bird Alex (voice of John Leguizamo), who tells the story of cuddly dinosaur brothers Patchi (Justin Long) and Scowler (Skyler Stone) and their fight for survival, love and domination as leader of the pack. Tiya Sircar voices cute dinosaur love interest Juniper.

The jokes are weedy and the story’s lame, and the whole thing is dumbed down for a very young audience. But fair enough, it’s a small kids movie and they’ll probably be okay with it. The voice acting may not be thrilling but it does its best with the screenplay by John Collee. The visuals are pretty much okay, too, if not perhaps outstanding.

Karl Urban and Charlie Rowe have the briefest of roles at the beginning and end as Uncle Jack and his nephew Ricky, whose hunt for dinosaur fossils starts the story off. They deserve a lot more to do.

The main problem is that dinosaurs are not cuddly or funny, and don’t have human feelings, thoughts and voices. They’re not like us in any way. They’re killer monsters, which aren’t really suitable to a truthful family-friendly movie. The truth’s hard to get round. Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park might have had a PG certificate but it was a horror monster movie. This one’s got a U certificate! Even though the brothers witness their father’s murder, the film remains literally bloodless.

(C) Derek Winnert 2013 derekwinnert.com