The Land Before Time (1988)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Blistering performances.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I don't know how I missed this movie in my childhood as when it came out I was the right age to watch it. But watching it now as an adult was also great. This is one of the movies that parents will enjoy watching with their kids.The animation is beautiful. They do a great job setting the mood with the colors. We feel the desperation, the fear and the great relief at the end when they get to their destination.Kids love dinosaurs. And the characters in this movie are great.n The baby dinosaurs are all cute and have different personalities for kids to enjoy.It also touches some important topics to teach the kids while providing them an entertaining story. We learn that it is important to work together to achieve our goals and that our differences should not be a reason not to play with each other.

Before all the sequels where Littlefoot and his horde of miscellaneous dino friends face sillier and sillier threats with the status quo never changing, there was the original movie. And it was everything you could expect from director Don Bluth. It was dark, it was heartbreaking. It was beautifully animated, charming and endearing. It dealt with themes of loss and bigotry, as well as those of hope and endurance.The story is very basic. Some sort of cataclysm has befallen the land and all the dinosaurs are fleeing to find more fertile lands. Amongst this chaos Littlefoot, an apatosaurus, is born, but ends up losing his mother during a struggle as well as being separated from his herd. And now he has to follow his mother's dying advice in search of the Great Valley. And the rest is simply him and his friends facing various adventures and threats along the way.It's simplistic, but what makes the movie work are its characters and its atmosphere. The animation style is very dark and even somewhat realistic, especially when it comes to the so called sharpteeth, or tyrannosauruses if you prefer. It can be a scary movie for younger children, but luckily the main characters are all very friendly and have great personalities to distract us from the darker aspects.Objectively speaking I do think that this movie has just a bit too much fluff for it to be called unequivocally great, but it makes up for it in charm and style. Definitely a good film and well worth a watch.

This is one of the very few non-Disney animated films I grew up with - five little dinosaurs Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie and a non-speaking Stegosaur travel the ruins of their land while being separated from their families by an earthquake, attempting to reunite with their loved ones in the beautiful and lush Great Valley.It's a pretty exciting story as we see the little dinosaur friends travel together to beat the odds and strive for survival as they struggle to find food and fend off frightening carnivores like the unforgiving T-Rex (who the call as Sharptooth).The animation is good and the voice-acting was believable. I like the Littlefoot character, couldn't stand the bratty Cera, and thought the friendship and bonding between Ducky and Petrie was little too sweet and endearing.Again, this is an exciting and very nice dinosaur film, but grew up on me overtime. It's a good film to bring the family together, but it's best for the kids' ages.Grade B

This movie is very short at just over an hour long and it is a shame that a lot of bits that were deemed too 'violent' were edited out of it. Another bad thing that stopped me giving it a 10/10 was that the continuity wasn't great in a part which had obviously been edited. It has wonderful animation though, and the score is just beautiful, the plot is great and you will cry if you are lucky. There is a lot of character development considering how short the movie is and it can be interpreted in different ways. I personally believe that the plot of the movie was slightly different before it was edited, possibly having more death. One of the main themes of the movie is that if you stick together with friends and use your various talents, you can do anything and come through trials and tribulations easier than if you go alone. A must see for any child over 5.